A. S. A. Jones has "replied" to "The Illogicalness of Judeo-Christian Religions," which was my response to the anecdotal "evidence" that she gave for her conversion to Christianity in an article entitled "From Atheism to Christianity." This is the second part of my reply to her reply. Part One ended with my response to her claim that her conversion was not about personal fulfillment but a search for the truth. We will see that her search for truth has been superficial at best because she allows her emotions to overrule her intelligence.
I will again use the headers Till(1) for quotations from my original reply, Jones for her reply, and Till for my replies to her reply. Quotations from her reply will also be italicized.
Till(1):
Before her conversion, Jones saw people as just organisms that
metabolized nutrients and
expelled wastes, but after my deconversion, I developed a profound awe
of the evolutionary
processes that brought us from the lower life forms to the species that
we now are. I see
more reason to wonder at this than at the simplistic notion that some
deity just spoke it
all into existence, but what I think from my own personal experiences
is worth no more
than what Jones thinks from hers.
Jones:
Agreed.
Till(1):
Logic is what makes the difference. I see logic in my view of life, but
I see nothing but
unbridled emotionalism in Jones's substitution of Jesus for rational
thinking.
Jones:
I see logic in my view of life, but I see nothing but shallowness of
intellect in yours.
(One opinion begets another).
Till:
Had I never attempted to show how illogical Jones's article is, her
comment above would
have been appropriate, but as my response to her article continued, I
made several attempts
to show how illogical she and the religion she converted to are. In her
article, however,
I saw no logical arguments at all offered in support of her position.
Till(1):
She seems to be a person who was unable to use her own inner resources
to find purpose and
meaning in life, and so in her frustration she turned to religion.
Jones:
Let us examine the above statement in more detail to see which of us
has succumbed to
emotionalism, instead of logic.
In an atheistic philosophy, there are certain things that concern the reality of life that must be accepted as illusion because, without God, that is the only thing they can be.
Till:
Now there is an assertion that begs for support. Just how was she able
to determine that
"certain things that concern the reality of life" must be illusion
unless "God" exists?
Has she fallen under the influence of presuppositionalists? She is
going to fit in quite
well with the would-be internet "apologists," because she can assert
with the best of
them.
Jones:
We live our lives as if they have a real and genuine purpose. Most
people will say that
their lives have meaning, regardless of their philosophy. But a life
that is created by
chance, and natural selection, can have no inherent or objective
purpose or meaning.
Till:
Well, here is another unsupported assertion, which we hear from theists
all of the time.
They assert that life can have no purpose unless "God" exists, but this
assertion
(unsupported, of course) is based on the assumption that life should
have an objective
purpose, but why should it? Each person must decide what to do with
his/her life, so
"purpose" in life will always be subjective. If Jones is going to argue
that there is an
objective purpose to life, she will need to prove that, but we have
already seen that she
is not too adept at proving her assertions.
She referred to life that was created by chance, but who besides theists speaking disparagingly of those who reject the Genesis account of creation would say that life developed by chance? If there is no god--and there is no evidence that there is--the origin of life would have had to result from fixed behavioral characteristics of matter, and those behavioral characteristics would be what we call "scientific laws." That which happens through the interaction of scientific laws would not be chance. If a rock is tossed into the air, for example, it would not be "chance" that made it fall to the ground. The fall of the rock would be the result of natural laws. If water is poured onto an uneven surface, it will flow toward the lowest level of the surface, but it doesn't do this by chance. It does it because of a natural law that causes water to seek its own level.
Jones talks about her "God," who she thinks existed without being created, but if her living god can exist without having been created, why would she think that living things far less complex could not exist without having been created? This is an issue that cannot be addressed in detail in just two or three replies to Jones, but if she would care to argue that "God" can exist without having been created but no other living forms can, I would be glad to debate that issue with her. Meanwhile, she needs to do a bit of research to see what the theory of abiogenesis really says about the origin of life. I think she will discover that this theory doesn't say that life developed just by chance. Chance, of course, would have been a factor, but scientific laws would have been the leading role players.
Jones:
Instead, such a life can only have a self-assigned, subjective meaning.
A non-objective
[sic], self-assigned meaning is purely imaginary!
Till:
And what is wrong with self-assigned, nonobjective purposes in life?
One person decides to
be a physician, another decides to be an engineer, another decides to
be a teacher, etc.,
etc., etc. These are all self-assigned, nonobjective purposes that
individuals give to their
lives. The fact that people choose different careers [purposes] as ways
to make their
livings is really all the evidence we need to show that there is no
such thing as an
[one] objective purpose to life.
Her claim that nonobjective, self-assigned meanings to life are purely imaginary is an assertion almost too absurd to merit comment. If John Smith decides to be a construction worker, then the self-assigned, nonobjective meaning that he gives his life is to build houses. The houses aren't imaginary, and neither is the nonobjective purpose that Smith gave his life. I do suspect that Jones has fallen under the sway of presuppositionalists.
Jones:
It is a subjective opinion of what can only be a subjective reality.
Till:
Reality is objective, because whatever is is. We cannot know what
reality is, but reality is
real, and whatever it is is real regardless of whether we want it to be
that way or not. It is
the way we perceive reality that is subjective, because what we
perceive may very well be
unreal. Jones, for example, thinks that she has personal experiences
with God, but she has
yet to present any real evidence that those experiences are real.
Jones:
Conversely, a life created by design and a designer, such as the one
described in
Christianity, is given an objective purpose; its meaning is genuine and
inherent.
Till:
Well, here is another one of Jones's assertions, but did anyone see any
evidence here or
below that supports this assertion? She is engaging in the fallacy of
undesirable
consequences (sometimes called the fallacy of wishful thinking). One
who commits this
fallacy argues that something must be true or untrue, because the
consequences of its not
being true or untrue are too undesirable to contemplate. Theists will
argue that there must
be an afterlife because if there isn't, death will be the end of life,
and that would be a
fate too horrible even to contemplate. Many theists will argue that
evolution cannot be
true, because if it is true, humans are nothing more than animals.
Since this consequence
is too undesirable for them to imagine, they conclude that evolution
has to be wrong and
that humans are the result of special creation.
Jones resorted to this fallacy above when she said that "a life that is created by chance, and natural selection, can have no inherent or objective purpose or meaning." She first assumed that life should have an objective purpose or that it is desirable for life to have an objective purpose and then used this assumption to argue that life had to have been created; otherwise, life can have no objective purpose, and she doesn't want life to be that way. She is doing nothing but playing the familiar theistic game of wishful thinking, but one doesn't have to have a high IQ to see the fallaciousness of this kind of reasoning. Whatever is is, so if reality is that all living things, including humans, die and that there is no afterlife for them to go to, then that is the way it is, and a billion Joneses not wanting it to be this way would never be able to change it. If life on earth and its present diversity of forms are the result of abiogenesis and evolutionary processes, then that is the reality that is, and there are not enough theists on earth not wanting it to be this way to change this reality to the way that they would like it to be.
Jones:
We may have different, subjective opinions as to what that purpose is,
but these are
subjective opinions concerning an objective reality.
Till:
I assume that everyone noticed that Jones recognizes that we cannot
know what the objective
purpose of life is, but, nevertheless, asserts that there is an
objective purpose to life.
Well, if we cannot know what the objective purpose of life is, how can
we know that there
is an objective purpose to life? She is actually arguing that we can
know that which we
cannot know.
What we have here is a situation similar to the objective morality issue, which has been debated many times on the ii errancy forum. From time to time, we would have theists come along to argue that without "God," there can be no objective morality, but they were never able to explain to us (1) how they can know this, (2) what objective morality is, and (3) how they can know what objective morality is. We now see Jones talking in the same kind of riddles relative to her claim that there is an objective purpose to life. How does she know this? What is the objective purpose of life? How was she able to know what this objective purpose of life is? Where can I go to find out what the objective purpose of life is? How does Jones know that this is the place to go to discover what the objective purpose of life is?
If she tries to answer these questions, I predict that we will see more abstract mumbo jumbo that gives no concrete answers to these questions.
Jones:
As a demonstration of the imaginary quality of self-assigned,
subjective purpose, examine
the tumultuous life of 'Andy'. [sic] When Andy was in school, he
decided that his goal in
life was to become a doctor and help alleviate the pain of his
patients. This was the
self-assigned purpose he gave to his life; without this purpose, his
life would have very
little meaning. For 6 years, this self-assigned purpose motivated him
to get up each morning.
Then he became very ill and his hopes of becoming a doctor vanished. So
he married a very
handsome woman and put her on a pedestal. Her love gave his life
meaning. His sole life's
purpose was to love this incredible woman; without her, his life would
have very little
meaning. Unfortunately, his wife felt the same way about another man
and, after 5 years of
marriage, she divorced Andy. Andy then decided to buy a Harley, because
he knew that his
bike would never leave him for another man. That bike gave Andy's life
meaning; his purpose
was to become one with the wind. Then he wrecked it... so he turned to
chess... he would
become the best chess player in the world...
Till:
This is more anecdotal evidence that proves what? Life is extremely
difficult. Who doesn't
know that? In fact, if Jones would read Genesis 3 objectively,
she should be able to
see that the Garden of Eden myth was simply an attempt to explain some
perplexing problems
about life, one of which was the constant struggle to survive that all
people must experience.
Why is life this way? Well, whoever spun this little yarn had the
answer to that question.
The first man and woman ate a forbidden fruit, and so "God" cursed all
parties involved in
the affair. The curse put on the man was that the ground that he tilled
would bring forth
thorns and thistles so that he would have to earn his living by the
sweat of his brow. Andy,
in Jones's hypothetical example, simple encountered some thorns and
thistles that kept his
life from going in the direction he wanted it to, but if there is an
"objective purpose" to
life, why were the thorns and thistles there in the first place?
Maybe Jones can tell us.
Jones:
The above scenario doesn't allow me to equate subjective, self-assigned
purpose with
objective, inherent designed purpose.
Till:
No, it didn't, so why did Jones waste our time with an anecdotal tale
that proved nothing?
I have a request for her to consider. Before she tries to "equate subjective, self-assigned purpose with objective, inherent designed purpose," she should first prove that there is an "objective, inherent designed purpose" to life. Her unsupported assertions get rather tiresome.
Jones:
I see the above as latching on to one diversion after another in a
desperate attempt to
avoid the reality of a meaningless life.
Till:
But if there is an objective purpose to life, why would so many people
be "latching on to
one diversion after another in a desperate attempt to avoid the reality
of a meaningless
life"? Why wouldn't that objective purpose be known to us so that the
Andys of the world
would know what they should do with their lives? Why, for example, did
Andy have an illness
that made all of his hopes of becoming a doctor vanish? If there is a
"God" who created
everything, then why does he throw obstacles like debilitating
illnesses into the lives of
some like Andy but allow others to enjoy good health that permits them
to work toward
achieving their subjective purposes? Pardon my cynicism but what Jones
is trying to
argue is so obviously contrary to the reality around her that she
should be able to see it
even if her IQ were not as high as she claims. She speaks of "a
meaningless life," but I
suspect that she is simply projecting her own failures onto others. She
was apparently unable
to make her own life meaningful when she was a nonbeliever, so she
concludes that the lives
of other nonbelievers aren't meaningful either. Like the criminal who
found Jesus too late,
after he was already in prison, Jones found Jesus after she had
apparently failed in her
goals, so she thinks that those who don't turn to the same god she did
must also be living
meaningless lives. She needs to learn what the categorical fallacy is.
I really don't have much tolerance for people who think that they need a god- or Jesus-crutch in order to find meaningful purpose in life. If an alcoholic can't find the inner strength not to raise the glass that enslaves him, then there isn't much in his character to admire if he has to depend on an entity that may not even exist to give him the motivation to take control of his life. If an alcoholic or drug addict said that he found the will to conquer his addiction by putting his trust in the Tooth Fairy, others would look askance at him and wonder about his sanity, but if he says that he conquered his habit by putting his trust in Jesus, they say, "Isn't that wonderful?"
Go figure.
Jones:
What makes the purpose created by God any less subjective than the
purpose created by man?
Till:
There she goes again, arguing by assertion. How does she know that
"God" created a "purpose"
to life? She doesn't say, of course, because it is always so much
easier for a theist or
biblicist just to assert and then rush on.
Jones:
I would think that the designer of any instrument or creature would be
the one to consult
in matters of the design and purpose of his design.
Till:
See how Jones argues by assertion? How does she know that "creatures"
were designed? She
doesn't know it; she simply assumes it because the Bible tells her so.
She apparently can't
see that she is arguing in a circle.
Jones: Man was created with a purpose.
Till: How do you know that man was created?
Jones: The Bible says that man was created?
Till: How do you know that what the Bible says about the creation of man is true?
Jones: The Bible is the word of God, so why wouldn't what it says about the creation of man be true?
This is an oversimplification of the way that Jones argues. She would never admit it, of course, because when it is put this way her circular reasoning becomes obvious. If I have misjudged her, and she is not arguing like this, then she needs to get with it and present clear, cogent arguments that would tell us how she has determined that humans were created.
Jones:
If the designer states that the purpose of his instrument is to remove
and place screws,
then he has declared that purpose as the objective purpose.
Till:
Jones has described a screwdriver, but as she notes below, screwdrivers
can be used for other
purposes. I have on many occasions used screwdrivers for other
purposes. I have used them
to chisel when no chisel was available; I have used them as prying
instruments when crow-bars
weren't available.
Jones:
The opinion of such a designer, wouldn't qualify as an opinion, but
rather it becomes the
objective purpose of the instrument. There is nothing to stop us from
turning the instrument
around and using its handle to pound in nails (and I am not one to
decry the usefulness of
employing a screwdriver in this manner), however, that usage would not
be the objective
purpose for which the instrument was created.
Till:
In her analogy, Jones has the inventor of the screwdriver available to
tell us what the
objective purpose of his invention is. This is where her analogy breaks
down, because the
designer of humans seems to be in hiding somewhere, so we can't ask him
what the objective
purpose of his design was.
Jones:
God is, by definition, the author or designer of life.
Till:
By whose definition? By the definition of theists, of course, but just
because theists define
"God" as the "author or designer of life" doesn't mean (1) that there
is a god, or (2) that
god, if he even exists, designed life. All of this is simply theistic
assumptions, which have
been answered repeatedly. If Jones had been any kind of informed
"atheist" before her
epiphany that led her to accept Jesus, she would have been familiar
with the replies to
theistic assumptions like these and perhaps would not have been so
easily swayed by her
emotions.
Jones:
A designer designs with intention. Only the designer is in a position
to know his intention;
all others can only speculate concerning his intention.
Till:
I assume that everyone is noticing that Jones continues to argue by the
unproven assumption
that there is a god who designed humans, but she has offered no
evidence to support this
assumption. I can think of many reasons why it is logical to believe
that the human body
is the result of undesigned evolution, and I would have to go no
further than my own body,
which has had 14 different surgeries performed on it. Once when I was
in the hospital after
having had several previous surgeries, my son told his daughter that
Grandpa was in the
hospital. Her response was, "What now?" I will use my eyes as an
example of obvious
imperfections in my body. I had to wear glasses at an early age in
order to see clearly
and especially to read. I later developed cataracts in both eyes and
had to have interocular
lenses implanted. I later underwent Lasik surgery to correct other
vision problems, and for
about three years, this gave me 20/20 vision (which "God" should have
given me in the first
place), but at that time I was also in the early stages of macular
degeneration, which has
since progressed, so I am once again facing vision problems. So I would
like to ask Jones to
explain to us why this "designer" of hers didn't do a better job
designing my body.
Why couldn't he have given me 20/20 vision that stayed that way? Why
did he give me an
appendix that later had to be surgically removed? Why did he... well,
this is enough that
Jones should get the picture. I have experienced all kinds of problems
in my body design,
yet I have been very lucky compared to some people I know. Some people
are born with cystic
fibrosis, sickle-cell anemia, down syndrome, and various other genetic
defects. Why
couldn't Jones's designer have done a much better job of designing than
what we see in
the reality around us, or is Jones even looking at the reality around
her?
Let her say, if she wants to, that this is all our fault because the first humans that "God" designed ate a forbidden fruit. I will be prepared to answer that excuse.
Jones:
For example, players, without the set of instructions for a new board
game, can only have
opinions as to how the game is designed to be played. They don't know,
with certainty,
the objective intent of its designer. But when the designer reveals the
objective purpose
of the game through written instructions and rules, he objectively
states his intention.
The designer is the authority concerning his design; he is the
objective authority when
it comes to purpose of the design because only he can know, with
certainty, its purpose.
Till:
I keep waiting for Jones to tell us where we can find instructions that
her "designer" gave
us about the "objective purpose" of his creation, and, of course, I
will want her to tell us
how we can know that these are unequivocally instructions that her
"designer" gave.
Jones:
He may attempt to make that purpose known to others, but that attempt
would make it open
to interpretation. But to disagree that the designer’s expressed
intentions, as to how the
game is to be played, are any less subjective than one’s own
interpretation of the game,
would be like saying to another, "We know what you think you mean, but
we disagree that
you really mean it.”
Till:
So where are the instructions that her "designer" gave, and how can we
know that they are
indeed the "designer's" instructions? Apparently, she isn't going to
tell us. Is anyone
surprised?
Jones:
When you write that Jones “was unable to use her own inner resources to
find purpose and
meaning in life, and so in her frustration she turned to religion”,
[sic] what are you
really saying?
Till:
I am saying that Jones lacked the ability, either intellectually or
emotionally or both, to
look reality squarely in the face and recognize that there probably is
no Big Daddy in the
sky looking over her and no happy hunting ground to go to after death,
so therefore her life
was going to be what she herself made of it. Unable to show that kind
of mental and
emotional spunk, she fell back on the God/Jesus crutch like an
alcoholic or drug addict who
lacks the "inner resources" to realize that if he puts himself to the
task, he can overcome
his problems on his own, and so he surrenders his intellect to a "high
power" and gives him
all the credit if this brings him success over his addiction.
Maybe Jones can tell us.
Jones:
‘Inner Resources’ [sic] amount to one’s subjective, imagination! You
may be content to
provide meaning to your life through use of your imagination, [sic]
however, I’m not into
playing pretend.
Till:
No, Jones isn't into playing pretend. She just believes in a god whose
existence cannot be
proven and puts her trust in Jesus, whose historical reality cannot be
established, but she
isn't into playing pretend.
Jones:
I seek a REAL, not PRETEND, purpose to my life.
Till:
Yeah, right! Maybe Jones can give us something besides argumentation by
assertion, question
begging, or special pleading that would give us reasonable evidence
that her "God" and
Jesus are real.
But maybe pigs will fly someday too.
Jones:
You may say that I kid myself into believing that there is a god, in
order to supply my life
with an objective purpose.
Till:
Jones said it for me, so I won't have to say it now.
Jones:
Of course, whether or not this god exists remains open to debate.
Till:
Just look how inconsistent Jones is. First she said that she seeks a real
not
pretend purpose for her life, meaning that she seeks the purpose
for her life that "God"
gave it, and then she turns around and says, "Of course, whether or not
this god exists
remains open to debate." If she ever was a real atheist, I don't think
that atheism lost
much when she converted to Christianity.
Jones:
You, however, reject the concept of a deity, and, therefore, reject any
concept of an
objective purpose to your life, but emotionally maintain that your life
has a purpose,
a purpose that can only be imaginary.
Till:
Jones is saying that the subjective is imaginary, but where does she
get this? If a
person makes a subjective decision to become president of the United
States, pursues
that goal, achieves it, and becomes president of the United States,
does that mean that he
just thinks that he is the president? We could ask the same of a person
who makes a
subjective decision to become a physician or lawyer or engineer and
succeeds in accomplishing
this goal.
Jones has learned well during her tenure as a Christian, because objective seems to be one of the favorite words of theists. Objective morality emanates from "God," so without "God," there can be no objective morality. That is a familiar themesong of theists. Now along comes Jones to argue the same thing about the purpose of life. Objective good; subjective bad. That is a popular theistic mantra. It is chanted by those who want to believe that their lives are guided by absolutes, but it is a chant that has been composed from the flimsy evidence that a god exists to give morality and life objectivity.
Jones:
At least there is the possibility that my God is real, and I don’t have
to kid myself into
believing that my life has meaning.
Till:
See how Jones contradicts herself? She first argued that there can be
no real meaning to
life without God, then she said that whether her god exists is open to
debate but that there is
at least a possibility that her god is real, so she doesn't have to kid
herself into
believing that her life has meaning. If she knows only that there is
just a possibility
that her god is real, then how can she know that she doesn't have to
kid herself into
believing that her life has meaning? She is making a mere possibility
into a reality, and, needless to say, that is an unwarranted leap in
her
"logic."
As a final note on this block of her nonreply, I will point out that in everything she said, she didn't tell us what the objective purpose of life is. I am not surprised at all that she didn't, because in my experiences with those who claim that they know that objective morality exists, none of them could tell me what objective morality is. Why then should I expect Jones to be able to tell me what the objective purpose of life is?
Till(1):
In her entire article, I didn't see a single attempt to show that in
converting to
Christianity she had followed a logical course of action. To the
contrary, everything
she said about her conversion indicated that she was looking for a way
out of what seemed
to have been a self-imposed loneliness in which she had been unable to
find purpose in life.
She related how one night when she was "alone in her study," she read
Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking,Glass and decided that she
should read
the Bible in the same way
that she read poetry or fiction.
The Bible didn't make sense to me. But why did it make sense to others? What were they seeing that I didn't? Did they so desperately want there to be a God that they had deluded themselves into thinking that there was one?
I think she was on to something at this point but just didn't follow through with about the only logical thought that I found in her entire article. In the first place, she had assumed that the Bible did make sense to others, but my experience has been that no one can really make sense out of those parts of the Bible that have spawned so much theological wrangling. Why, for example, would an omniscient, omnipotent creator want humans to worship him?
Jones:
What does it mean to worship? Adore, revere, glorify, praise…
Till:
So why would an omniscient, omnipotent, omni-everything deity want
created beings to worship
him? As I go through this section of Jones's nonreply, notice that she
doesn't answer the
question I asked.
That Jones's god demanded that his created beings worship him is evident from the following quotations from her "word of God."
Matthew 4:10 You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve.
John 4:23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
I could quote other passages, but these are sufficient to show that Jones's god not only requires his created beings to worship him, but actually seeks them to worship him. Furthermore, he not only requires his creatures to worship him but is angry and jealous when they don't.
Exodus 34:13 You shall tear down their altars, break their pillars, and cut down their sacred poles 14 (for you shall worship no other god, because Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God).
It sounds very much as if this omniscient, omnipotent, omni-everything god of hers suffers from an inferiority complex. I suppose that his complex is not an omni one, unless, of course, he is omnijealous. Some of the tantrums he threw in the Old Testament would suggest that he is.
Jones:
Isn’t there more to God than just the being of an entity?
Till:
I don't think that Jones's god even exists, so if I am right--and even
she admits that it is
possible that I am right--then there is nothing to this god. He is no
more than what Zeus
or Neptune or Thor or Horus or Dagda or Ahura Mazda or Hotei or Kuan
Yin or Vishnu are [were].
These and hundreds of others were all deities that their worshipers
thought were real,
but they existed only in the wishful thinking of primitive people.
Jones's god, however,
is real. Just ask her. She will tell you, and you will then get a good
lesson in just how
illogically she thinks.
Jones:
What are people worshipping when they worship God?
Till:
Nothing?
Jones:
They are worshipping an objective moral standard.
Till:
And Jones proof of this is what? And even if an "objective moral
standard" exists, why
should it be worshiped?
Before I leave this point, I will ask Jones some of the same questions that I have asked others who have claimed the existence of an objective moral standard but couldn't seem to defend the concept. I would appreciate specific, concrete answers to the questions, but I doubt that I will get them.
1. How does Jones know that objective morality exists?
2. How can Jones know what objective morality is?
3. How can I find what objective morality is?
In addition to her answers to these questions, I would like for her to give us an example, just one, of an objectively moral principle and then tell us how she was able to know that this is an objectively moral principle. I'll even help her get started. Is lying objectively immoral? If so, how does she know? Where can I go to learn that lying is objectively immoral?
Jones:
What good does it do to continuously praise a moral standard? Gee. I
would have to say
that praising a standard would ensure that those praising it would
honor it and try to
live by it.
Till:
That's not a good answer. It is entirely subjective, because it is an
answer that
originated either in her mind or the mind of the person from whom she
borrowed it. Poor
Jones just doesn't seem to realize that thoughts and ideas have to
originate in minds, so
all thoughts and ideas are therefore subjective. Anything that Jones
may say is an
objectively moral principle will necessarily be something that
originated in the mind of
someone, so it will be a subjective idea. Objective moral principles
are therefore
impossible.
Jones:
We don’t worship God for His sake. God asks that we worship Him for our
own sake.
Till:
How does Jones know this? Can she tell us where she learned this and
how she knew that the
source of this idea was objective?
Till(1):
Is he ["God"] so insecure that he needs this adulation to bolster his
ego? If so, then he
can't be very omniscient. Why would an omniscient, omnipotent creator
require the sacrifice
of his son in order to make "salvation" possible for mankind?
Jones:
Now, now, Farrell. Even I as an atheist knew the false analogy and
appeal to emotion when
making the old ‘How could God kill his own Baby!’ argument.
Till:
Well, that's not what I was asking. Jones can leave out the "son" part.
All that I intended
to ask was why this omni-max deity of hers requires a sacrifice to make
"salvation" possible
for mankind. Before the sacrifice of the "son" happened, Jones's god
was requiring the
incineration of animals in order for people to obtain forgiveness. Why?
What is wrong with
this omni-everything deity of hers that he requires the sacrificing of
lives? Why couldn't
he have just forgiven "sins" without all of the bloodshed?
If Jones can't answer that question, I can answer it for her. The idea of "sacrifices" was just an ancient superstition. Calamities happened for no other reason except that calamities happen, but superstitious people living in primitive times wanted to know why they happened. They didn't understand that earthquakes happened because of the movement of tectonic plates, so they tried to explain the death and destruction of earthquakes the best way they knew how. Their gods were angry with them. So they sought to appease the anger of their gods by inflicting hardships on themselves. Sheep, goats, and cattle were important to these ancient people, because they represented wealth to them, so if they sacrificed sheep or cattle to their gods, they thought that this would appease their wrath. Children became the ultimate sacrifices, because one's children were even more important than domesticated livestock. Such sacrifices were offered by the Hebrews and the tribes and nations all around them. Eventually, the idea of the sacrifice of "God's" only son evolved from the practice of offering sacrifices to appease the gods. A man's only son was of extreme importance to him, so the concept of "God" offering his only son as a sacrifice for the "sins" of mankind became the supreme notion of "God's" showing his love for mankind.
This is a barbaric idea that humans should have outgrown by now, but unfortunately some still buy it. Jones has swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
Jones:
Jesus wasn’t exactly a babe in swaddling clothes when He chose to hang
upon the cross.
That’s right. Jesus chose to do his Father’s will, and he did so as an
adult, not as
some thumb-sucking, blankey hugging, boogery nosed toddler.
Till:
How does Jones know that Jesus hanged upon the cross? That's right! The
Bible tells her
so. None of her asserting and question begging and special pleading,
however, answers
the question I asked. Why would an omni-everything deity require
that sacrifices of any
kind be offered to him before he would grant forgiveness? The very
concept of sacrifices
being necessary before "God" would forgive is completely incompatible
with the concept of
an omnibenevolent deity. Obviously, Jones can only talk in circles, but
she can't give a
satisfactory answer to the question I have asked her. Why would an
omni-everything deity
require sacrifices? It is a primitive superstion that humanity
should have outgrown by
now, but Jones and her ilk still cling to it as some people still
believe that horseshoes and
four-leaf clovers will bring good luck.
Jones:
Isn’t sacrificing our sons and daughters, when we see them go marching
off to war for
the greater good of our societies the same thing as God sacrificing His
Son for the
perceived greater good of mankind? If not, I would be very interested
in knowing how you
think the analogy fails.
Till:
I will gladly accommodate Jones. Her analogy fails because it compares
omniness to the
finite. What father would watch his son or daughter go marching off to
war "for the greater
good of society," if the father were omniscient and omnipotent? If the
father possessed
these characteristics, he could bring about the "greater good" without
having sons and
daughters die on battlefields. Jones cannot imagine a "greater good"
that an omni-everything
deity could not bring about without having people suffer and die.
So now Jones knows how her analogy fails.
Till(1):
When earthly children displease their parents, only those who are
psychological misfits
abuse their children or kill them, yet we are supposed to think that a
"heavenly father" is
entirely within his rights to kill his children or punish them
eternally in fire.
Jones:
A man can only know, for certain, his physical reality. Therefore, when
a man takes
another’s life, he is sentencing him to a grave, forever.
Till:
Jones will be pleased to know that I agree with her. Since there is no
reason at all to
think that a person can survive the death of his brain, we have every
reason to believe
that when a man takes another's life, he is sentencing him to a grave
forever.
Jones:
When the Biblical God takes a man’s life, He is well aware of the
spiritual reality that
awaits that man.
Till:
This is argumentation by assertion and question begging. Jones has no
way of knowing if
the biblical god even exists, so to speak of what this god may be aware
of is to beg a
question that she needs to prove. I assume, however, that readers are
noticing that Jones,
in typical biblicist fashion, never bothers to try to prove anything.
Asserting, question
begging, and special pleading are much easier than that annoying need
to prove, so she
consistently takes the easy way out.
Jones:
God has the capacity to restore life; man does not. Viva la difference.
Till:
This is more argumentation by assertion and question begging. Jones is
asserting that a
god who may not--and I am willing to go so far as to say does
not--exist has the capacity to
restore life. If I said that Zeus has the capacity to restore life, I
am sure that she
would immediately see that I am asserting, but somehow she can't see
the same fallacy in
her own writing.
Jones:
As far as Hell is concerned, only those who don’t feel the need to
repent will
allegedly be there. Every day, we sentence those murderers who cannot
be reformed to
life in a cell. If you knew of a cold blooded murderer who showed no
remorse for his
actions and who boldly stated that he would kill again, if released
from prison, would
you consider it immoral to keep him locked up for eternity? I would
consider it immoral
to release him. You may consider a lifetime spent in a cell to not be
the equivalent of
hell. What about an eternity spent there?
Till:
After arguing by assertion, Jones turned back to false analogy. If a
man committed adultery,
would Jones think that it would be morally right to keep him locked up
for eternity? If a
woman lied, would Jones think that it would be morally right to keep
her locked up for
eternity? If a man didn't sell everything he has and give it to the
poor, would Jones think
that it would be morally right to keep him locked up for eternity? She
chose one of the most
despicable crimes imaginable to use as an example as if the Bible
teaches that only those who
commit despicable sins will be cast into hell, but the Bible really
doesn't make much
distinction between sins. Drunkenness, lying, jealousy, strife, anger,
and various other
nonviolent "sins" will result in a person's damnation.
Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
There is even another point of falseness in Jones's analogy. She thinks that it would be morally right to lock up a murderer for all eternity, but does she think that it would be morally right to torture the murderer for all eternity? Maybe she does, but what about those who were guilty of lesser moral offenses like fornication, jealousy, anger, envy, etc.? Would Jones think that it would be morally right to torture such people forever? If not, why does she believe that her god is entitled to torture people forever for "sins" like jealousy and envy? Does she think that in torturing people forever her god is accomplishing some "greater good"?
Till(1):
I suppose that Jones has found such conduct as this on the part of an
omni-max deity, which
would include his omnibenevolence, to be perfectly sensible.
Jones:
The ‘omni-max’ attribute, which results in logical absurdities, is the
concept of those
who force a rigid, hyper-literalism upon the Biblical text. I don’t use
that concept when
reading any literature, because any hyperbole or exaggeration, if held
to the same
ridiculous standard, can cause any writing to be rendered as illogical.
As an English
teacher, I’m surprised that you don’t know this.
Till:
Of course, the omni-max attribute results in logical absurdities, but I
didn't write the
Bible, which presents "God" as the Big Yahoo in the sky who knows all,
sees all, and can
do all. If Jones would care to deny that the Bible presents him in this
way, I would be
happy to take her on if she will agree to refrain from argumentation by
assertion, question
begging, and special pleading and actually try to reply to my rebuttal
arguments with
reasonable supporting material.
Jones:
Yes, God’s conduct becomes perfectly sensible when He is viewed as a
god and not as a
man.
Till:
Oh, it does? Then perhaps Jones can explain to us what is sensible
about a god whose name
is Jealous (as noted above), who required everyone to worship him under
penalty of death
(Deut. 13:6-16; 17:2-7), who required a woman's hand to be cut off if
she gabbed the balls
of a man attacking her husband (Deut. 25:11-12), who commanded that no
one be left alive to
breathe in the Israelite sweep through Canaan (Deut. 20:16-17), and who
ordered the massacre
of an entire nation, including children and babies, because of
something that their ancestors
had done over four centuries earlier.
If Jones will explain to us how such conduct as this can be perceived as sensible conduct on the part of a god, I have other examples I can cite. I have been waiting to meet someone who can make sense out of various parts of the Bible, so perhaps I have finally found the person who can do that.
Jones:
In fact, I find it very funny when people walk around saying “Who does
God think He is,
anyway? God?” Ha.
Till:
Well, I don't say that. Instead, I say that this god doesn't exist
except in the imaginations
of gullible people like Jones. People living in an ancient, barbaric
society created this
god in their image, and people like Jones lack the level of critical
thinking necessary to
see that such a deity as this is a logical impossibility.
Till(1):
I could continue this line of questioning indefinitely.
Jones:
We know, we know…
Till:
And this does what to resolve the logical absurdities in the character
of Jones's god and his
"word," which I identified above.
Till(1):
If Jesus is God, then when "God" sent his son into the world to die for
the sins of the
world, did he send himself? How could there be just one God but three
separate "persons"
in this one God? How could Jesus have been "wholly God and wholly man,"
as most
theologians claim? When asked to explain it, many of them will at least
be honest and say
that it can't be explained, because it is a "mystery." Well, excuse me,
but mysteries don't
make sense, so was Jones able to make sense of this "mystery"? If so,
perhaps she will
agree to explain it to us.
Jones:
Certainly. How can there be just one ‘God’, [sic] but three separate
persons in this one
God?
Till:
Yes, that's the question. Now take a look at Jones's "answer."
Jones:
The definition of ‘God’ is a concept that encompasses the three who
comprise it. For example,
you can have three persons, ie., Larry, Mo and Darwin. These person’s
are fully human. They
are also fully American. Their nationality combines them as one unit;
One nationality, 3
individuals, 3 Americans.
Till:
My, I have seen false analogies before, but this one deserves first
prize. Larry, Mo[e], and
Darwin don't comprise the whole of Americanism, because there would be
millions of other
Americans besides these three. "American," then, is obviously not
definitionally parallel
to "God." The word God is used to denote an entity, but nationality
is not a word used to denote an entity but rather an identifying
characteristic of an entity.
The Bible tells us that there is just one God, and the word god was used in the Bible to denote an entity. Let's compare two biblical passages.
Ephesians 4:4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
1 Corinthians 8:5 For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) 6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
In these texts the word god was obviously being used to denote entity and gods to denote entities. Thus Dagon, Chemosh, Tammuz, etc. were perceived by their worshipers as entities. Dagon was one god or entity, Chemosh was another god or entity, and Tammuz was still another god or entity. Likewise, the apostle Paul perceived "God" as an entity, which to him was the only entity. It is singular to note that Paul even distinguished "God" from the "one Spirit" and the "one Lord." There is, so Paul said, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God. That adds up to three.
As for Jones's Larry-Mo-and-Darwin analogy, if I said that there is "one American," one would wonder about my intelligence, because everyone knows that there are millions of Americans. Is Jones saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are like Larry, Mo[e], and Darwin in the sense that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are just three of many gods, in the same way that Larry, Mo[e], and Darwin are just three of many Americans? If so, is she saying that the pagans had it right and that there are gods of all kinds? If not, then just what the hell is she saying?
In saying that Larry, Mo[e], and Darwin were both wholly human and wholly American, she again resorted to false analogy, because human and American are not parallel to God and human in the sense that theologians speak of Jesus as being "wholly God and wholly human." Human is a classification of a life form, which distinguishes it from bovine or canine or equine, and "God" is a classification that denotes a supernatural or spirit-world entity. (If nothing more, the fact that human, as used in her analogy, is a noun and American an adjective should tell Jones that the two aren't parallel.) If I showed Jones an animal and told her that this animal is fully canine and fully equine, she would have no difficulty at all in recognizing the logical inconsistency in what I was saying, but she seems to think that she can play semantic games with us and make it perfectly sensible to say that a single entity could be both wholly human and wholly God.
Jones:
When we speak of God, the attributes that comprise the Deity, can be
described as a divine
nationality. Hence, a shared group of characteristics dispersed among
three individuals.
Till:
Semantic games and false analogies cannot solve this problem for Jones.
If I said that there
is one canine but that there is a "shared group of characteristics
dispersed among three
individuals" (Fido, Spot, and Rover) within this one canine, Jones
would have no difficulty
seeing through the analogy. If, for example, divine nationality
is an appropriate
parallel to God, Jones could substitute it for God
without affecting the
meanings of any biblical statements where God is used, but look
at what happens when
this is done.
John 3:16 "For the divine nationality so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 "Indeed, the divine nationality did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of the divine nationality.1 Thessalonians 3:11 Now may our divine nationality and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. 12 And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. 13 And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our divine nationality and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
Texts like these are obviously referring to "God" in the sense of a person and not a "nationality." Nationalities are general; "God" is specific. If, for example, God the father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are just one "nationality," then when the apostle Paul prayed above for the divine nationality to "lead our way" to you, he was praying for God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit [the whole ball of wax] to lead him to the Thessalonians, so why did he include the Lord Jesus in the prayer, because when he was asking God [the divine nationality] to lead the way to them, he would have been asking that the Lord Jesus lead the way to them? Furthermore, if "divine nationality" is an accurate parallel of "god," then how could Jesus have been the "son" of the "divine nationality"? Were the Holy Spirit and God the Father both the father of Jesus? If so, how? For that matter, if Jesus was one of the three individuals in the "divine nationality," that would mean that Jesus was one third of his own father. If not, why not?
The three-persons-in-one-god concept is a logical absurdity, and no amount of semantic trickery or false analogy can make it sensible.
Jones:
You may disagree and choose not to understand the Trinity in a way that
makes sense.
Till:
Or instead, I could choose not to understand the trinity in a way that
does not make
sense, because Jones has failed completely to make sense of it.
Three-persons-in-one-god is
logically nonsensical. There is no sense to it. Some theologians are
honest enough to
admit that there is no logical sense to the concept and so it must be
accepted on faith, but
I suppose that Jones, having such a high IQ, feels an obligation to try
to show us that she
understands it.
Jones:
But this is the way I see it, and it makes sense to me.
Till:
Well, of course, it makes sense to Jones. What else could she say?
Jones:
It is not an addition problem of 1+1+1 = 1; It is a multiplication
problem of 1x1x1 = 1.
Till:
I beg to differ. It is clearly an addition problem. If Jones found a
marble on the floor,
another marble on the coffee table, and another marble on her TV, to
find out how many
marbles she had found, would she add or multiply to get the answer? She
could multiply, of
course, because multiplication is simply multiple addition. Since she
had found a marble in
three different places, she could multiply to find out how many marbles
she had found, but
she would have to use mathematics correctly, and that would entail
multiplying 1 (the number
of marbles in each find) by 3 (the number of times that she found just
1 marble) to get the
right answer, or else she could add 1 + 1 + 1 and still get the right
answer. Why would she
think that she could get the right answer by multiplying 1 x 1 x 1? I
think that Jones could
profit from a course in basic math.
Till(1):
I taught literature on the college level for thirty years, so I know
how to read poetry
and fiction. When I read the Bible, I apply to it the same principles
of literary
interpretation that I would apply if I were reading a novel or a short
story or an
anthology of poetry, yet I have been unable to find sensible
explanations of the many
inconsistencies, contradictions, discrepancies, and such like that I
see nearly every time
I read the Bible for any extended period.
Jones:
The point that I was making was that any piece of literature can be
scrutinized to the
point of absurdity, even those that we take as fact or as having merit.
Till:
I agree, but I will show that her analogy below is another false one.
Jones:
For example, in the written testimony concerning the events of the
assassination of
President Kennedy, two eyewitnesses are recorded as having seen Oswald
approach the
same intersection, but from different directions. If we were to apply
your same reasoning
concerning Biblical interpretation, we could conclude that Oswald
didn’t exist. (ha ha)
Till:
This is simply a variation of the attempt we see so often to explain
why there are variations
in the resurrection narratives. Three people witness an accident, but
in the reports that
they give to police, there are significant variations. This analogy is
false, because the
witnesses to the accident were not inspired of God when they gave their
reports, but those
who wrote the resurrection narratives presumably were so inspired. Why,
then, did they
disagree on significant points?
Jones's analogy above fails for the same reason. The two eyewitnesses who saw Oswald were not inspired of God when they gave their testimony. Biblical writers, however, were presumably inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, but if this is so, why would there be glaring inconsistencies and contradictions in their divinely inspired accounts?
Maybe Jones can tell us.
Another comment is in order before I leave this point. I don't reject the claim that Jesus rose from the dead because of inconsistencies in the resurrection narrative but because of the nature of the claim. If ancient documents say that a man name Shimei rode a donkey from Jerusalem to Bethel but the documents disagreed on some points like the color of the donkey or the route that Shemei took, I would not see these inconsistencies as reason to reject that the man rode a donkey from Jerusalem to Bethel. However, if these documents claim that Shimei flew from Jerusalem to Bethel by flapping his arms like a bird, I would reject the claim because of its very nature.
My point should be obvious to Jones.
Jones:
In another example, if we were to apply your stringent and rigid
literalism to any truth
expressed poetically or through metaphor, we would have reason to deny
that the following
statement makes sense:
Till:
Figurative language can generally be recognized by the context in which
the language appears,
because a literal interpretation of figurative language will almost
always result in
absurdities. Psalm 31:3 says that Yahweh is a rock and a fortress. One
would have to be
hopelessly dull intellectually not to know that rock and fortress were
being used as metaphors;
otherwise, one would have to believe that the writer was saying that
Yahweh is made out of
minerals. I will expand this idea as I go through Jones's desperate
attempt to make problem
passages in the Bible figurative in meaning. That's a common ploy of
biblicists. When a
biblical passage that was clearly literal in its intended meaning
causes an inconsistency or
a contradiction, biblicists say, "Well, the language here is
figurative."
Jones:
"Never less alone than when alone". [sic] If you break this sentence
down into its
components, logically it cannot make sense.
Till:
First of all, this isn't a sentence. It is a sentence fragment that has
proverb written all
over it. (Does Jones recognize my figurative language here?) Proverbs
are quite often
figurative in meaning, so this would be a tip-off to anyone who
understands basic principles
of literary interpretation.
Jones:
Yet this phrase describes a very real type of individual; it is
describing a person who
considers himself to be his own best company.
Till:
Well, duh!
Jones:
It tells of an individual who is content to spend hours lost in his own
thoughts. You have
to examine the paradox in the context of what you know to be true about
human nature in
order to understand it. It is assumed by the author that the reader
will not be ignorant of
this information.
Till:
Jones has used an example so obvious that it almost amounts to a false
analogy, because
most passages that biblicists want to make figurative or metaphorical
in their meanings
have no obvious indications of figurative language. Biblicists will
argue that the language
is figurative for no other reason except that they want to get around
discrepancies.
Jones:
What I find as truly surprising is that an English teacher, such as
yourself [sic], seems to
be unable to detect these types of nuances in the Bible, while having
no problem
understanding the works of the poets. It seems to me that it is you,
not I, who is not
applying the principles of reading comprehension evenly across the
board.
Till:
What types of nuances? Jones gave no specific examples of figurative
passages in the Bible
with nuances that I fail to recognize as figurative. I suspect that she
was silent on this,
because she didn't want to stick her neck out. I am going to quote a
text that biblicists
often assign figurative meaning to and ask her to point out the
linguistic markers in the
text that show intended figurative meanings.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. 6 And God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." 7 So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8 God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. 9 And God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it." And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. 14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth." And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars. 17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
Because the Genesis account of creation so obviously conflicts with known scientific discoveries, such as the claim in this passage that there were three evenings and three mornings before the sun was created, biblicists will wave the problems aside by saying, "Well, the writer was speaking metaphorically," but what are the linguistic indications in this text that the writer was speaking figuratively?
Let's bring the figurative matter back to what Jones doesn't want to face. The Old Testament presented her god Yahweh as a barbaric entity, who would make Saddam Hussein look like a teddy bear, but Jones wants to explain the barbarous nature of her god away and accuse me of being hyperliteral--a term that she seems to have borrowed from her hero Robert Turkel--for interpreting these massacres in a way that conflicts with scriptures that depicted her god as being loving and merciful, but I challenge her to show us that the following passages don't mean exactly what they say.
Deuteronomy 20:16 But as for the towns of these peoples that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. 17 You shall annihilate them--the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites--just as Yahweh your God has commanded.
Joshua 10:40 So Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings; he left no one remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as Yahweh God of Israel commanded.
1 Samuel 15:1 Samuel said to Saul, "Yahweh sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of Yahweh. 2 Thus says Yahweh of hosts, 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did in opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'"
Now is the language in these texts that commanded the utter destruction of these nations figurative or literal? If Jones says that it is figurative, let her point out the linguistic markers that would so indicate. She said that she finds it "truly surprising... that an English teacher" can't detect nuances in the Bible that would help me understand that what I claim are discrepancies aren't really discrepancies. Well, turn about is fair play, so I will tell her that I find it truly surprising that a person with a high IQ can't recognize when biblical writers were obviously writing literally. If I'm the one with the problem, perhaps she will show me the "nuances" in the passages I quoted above that would indicate that "leaving nothing alive to breathe" and "utterly destroying" didn't mean what these words would normally convey in their literal senses.
At this point in Jones's "reply" to my article, she undertook
to show that there
are real discrepancies in the Qur'an, so I am going to stop here so
that I can show
in Part Three that the same
methods
she used to find Qur'anic
discrepancies would, if
equally applied, expose discrepancies in the Bible.
