Diagnosis: Schizophrenia

 

Glancing through a book that caught my eye with the snappy title ‘The End of Faith,Religion,Terror and the future of reason’ by nu-atheist Sam Harris.

I came upon this claim on page 19:

 

‘…most fundamentals live by the light of reason …,its just that their minds seem to have been partitioned to accommodate the profligate truth claims of their faith. Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and be persuaded only to the extent that you give it.

Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about

the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever.’

 

Hmm I think Sam has forgotten or never been told about theology,or specifically Presuppositional apologetics. I think he’s forgotten or never been told about the evidences for theism?

What amazes me is Harris’s ability to know the mind of all fundamentalists, such they he can diagnose a schizophrenia for all of them.

Its an interesting choice that he chooses to point out Gods punishment rather than the central message ,the good news,the gospel, the message of grace ,forgiveness and restoration through the substitutionary death of Christ.

The Bible is written as a testament to events,constantly pointing to evidence ,witnesses and logic.

Unlike the orbiting chocolate tea pot or the spaghetti monster ,we are not expected to make a Kierkegaardian leap in accepting the propositions of the Bible. We are not jumping in the dark.

Francis Schaeffer wrote regarding the Bibles emphasis on real events :

 

‘Mount Sinai is one of the most important sites of the entire Bible. It was here that the Hebrew people came shortly after their flight from Egypt. Here God spoke to them through Moses, giving them directions for their life as a newly formed nation and making a covenant with them.

The thing to notice about this epochal moment for Israel is the emphasis on history which the Bible itself makes. Time and time again Moses reminds the people of what has happened on Mount Sinai:

“You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire . You heard the sounds of words but saw no form, there was only a voice.”

Deuteronomy 4:11,12 ‘

 

The emphasis is on being eye witnesses .You heard you saw.

Again Schaeffer writes regarding the new testament as a record of history :

 

‘This emphasis -that faith is not contrary to reason-is presented in both the old and the new testaments. The entire Bible makes plain that the history it records is to be seen as real history. Consider the apostle Paul in Greece. Paul visited Corinth and stayed there for a year and a half.

There he met a Jew named Aquilla, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks…so Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching then the word of God.

Acts 18: 2-4,11.

 

The Roman biographer Suetonius tells us more about the expulsion of the Jews, and the occasion can be dated from another source to the year AD 49.

From this scripture we are placed into a definite time in history recognised from external sources; we are also given information about ordinary uncommon events such as Paul’s occupation,Aquilla and Prisilla’s occupation and why they left Italy.

Schaeffer makes the point that the supernatural events are couched in the ordinary everyday and are not some otherworldly trip that cannot be expressed in words but are expressible and able to be witnessed.

Regarding Biblical accuracy:

There are more than 24,000 partial and complete manuscript copies of the New Testament.
These manuscript copies are very ancient and they are available for inspection now.

There are also some 86,000 quotations from the early church fathers and several thousand Lectionaries (church-service books containing Scripture quotations used in the early centuries of Christianity).

Comparison with other Books

It is worth comparing the manuscript witnesses to the text of the Bible with the manuscript witnesses to the text of other ancient books. The following table contains details of some ancient works.

Work	When Written	Earliest Copy	Time Span	Copies
Caesar’s Gallic Wars	100-44 BC	900 AD	1,000 yrs	10
Plato’s Tetralogies	427-347 BC	900 AD	1,200 yrs	7
Tacitus’ Annals	100 AD	1100 AD	1,000 yrs	20
Pliny’s Histories	61-113 AD	850 AD	750 yrs	7
Herodotus’ History	480-425 BC	900 AD	1,300 yrs	8
New Testament	40-70 AD	180 AD	120 yrs	24,000

In spite of the superior numbers of Biblical manuscripts and the closeness of these manuscripts to the original writing of the Bible, no-one seriously questions the text of the other works.

Sam Harris’s accusation of a mind divided by the need to believe in the supernatural ,is as a consequence of the dominance of the scientific method,such that stretching the point too far ,science becomes the exclusive arbiter of all truth, rightly described as Scientism.

The a priory assumption of scientism is a closed universe,where nothing except what can be measured exists. The reason for this assumption is unfounded -what empirical evidence is there to prove this assumption?