Where did I go today?

Comment by: Ir

Hi Hemant, I’m sorry to hear that the group you wanted to visit tonight isn’t meeting.

Thanks for responding to my comment about atheists and the Bible. I wonder if your view of the Bible is different from that of atheists who are from a Christian background, who might be sick and tired of the role the Bible has had in their lives in the past. They may feel less disposed to look for good messages in it; they might be happy to never read it again. I don’t know; I’m just speculating.

Comment by: Jack

Thanks for what you’re doing to give us a fresh perspective on what Athiests might think of church. I’ve read what you’ve written with great interest and enjoyment. In fact, I’ve been so taken by what you and Jim Henderson are doing that I titled my sermon today “Where’s Hemant?”! I started my message saying that my title is unique in the history of Christianity and I think I was right! In the introduction I talked about how there’s kind of a spiritual “Where’s Waldo” going on in the Chicago suburbs where Christians are trying to guess where you’re going to show up next and scanning their congregations carefully for your presence. As you can guess, our congregation was pretty engaged in the message from the beginning and I had great fun delivering it!

As the message continued, I talked about the pros and cons of Atheists which I think took some long-time members by surprise who thought Atheists were entirely opposed to what Christians are all about. As I spoke I started thinking they might can me on the spot and hand me a pink slip half way through the message! I’m happy to report that I survived with my job intact.

We’ve just started digitially recording our messages but they’re not on the web yet. I asked one of our tech guys to figure out a way to make the message accessible to you and they put it up on a hastily created site. Now that I found that you didn’t make it to church today I figure you could at least listen to my off-the-wall (or should I say “off-the-map”) message and report on it instead! If you’re not interested in doing that then don’t think I’ll be offended at all…just thought I’d offer.

Anyway, thanks again for all you’re doing!

Comment by: Ir

TXatheist, thanks for your comments.

Jack, I’d be interested to hear your sermon even if it’s outside the scope of what Hemant is doing for OTM. Would you be willing to post the link to it?

Comment by: TXatheist

Welcome Jack and I’d be interested in the atheist part of your sermon. If you get it up as an audio load let us know, please.

Comment by: Siamang

Jack wrote:

As the message continued, I talked about the pros and cons of Atheists which I think took some long-time members by surprise who thought Atheists were entirely opposed to what Christians are all about.

As I’ve heard quoted, “The opposite of Christianity isn’t atheism, it’s apathy.”

Thanks for sharing our story here with your congregation. I’m really interested in hearing your sermon! How wonderful that this story is meaningful for members of your church. I’d love to hear what you had to say, and what any specific reactions were from your members!

Comment by: Topher

The Bible as a guide to life???

I would venture forth to say that if you don’t believe in the Bible, then it would almost be impossible to accept it as “good” moral teachings.

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis’ writing Mere Christianity:

To say that Jesus was just a good moral teacher is absurd. To believe that a man walked around, and told everyone he met that he was GOD means that he either is who he says he is, or a raving lunatic.

If a man were to walk around today, claiming to be the God of the bible, he would be laughed at. The words that he spoke would not be taken as “good” instructions for life; they would be considered a crazy man’s words.

To say that Jesus is a good teacher is saying that his words are not that of a crazy man, it is saying that he is who he claimed to be, God.

I find this a hard concept to be riding the fence with. Comments???

Comment by: Siamang

Topher,

The point of view of Lewis is that Jesus’s story is fact. To him, it’s a factual account, so any suspicion that it is not a factual account (at least in your paraphrase) sends him into “does not compute” mode. To him, Jesus was a real dude, so he was either liar, lunatic or Lord.

I’d submit that there are LOTS of people roaming the earth today saying that they are God. Heck, it’s the central issue in Gnosticm. It’s not crazy. They aren’t liars. It’s a religious belief. It’s in the same category as those people who believe we have souls. They believe that those souls are pieces of the creator God. To live without enlightenment is to be a person who doesn’t recognize the God-nature inside him.

There are some scholars who see Jesus’ story as a Gnostic mystery religion turned inside-out. I can see where they’re coming from on this one.

But to some people, it wouldn’t matter if Jesus’s story was literal or mythological. Jesus, to them, is a story about one man who fully recognized the God nature inside of him, and as such teaches us how to uncover it in ourselves.

Myth ALSO educates us. Myth is also a moral instruction tool. Heck, Superman comics teach kids right from wrong. It doesn’t matter that Superman is fiction to be able to use the life-lessons in Superman. In fact, the mythic nature of superheroes is a better way to learn some lessons than real life.

To speak back to Lewis, “just because Superman isn’t real doesn’t mean we should chuck ‘Truth, Justice and the American Way.’” I’m actually quite fond of those ideals, and believe in the moral instruction that is found in the mythical character Superman.

Comment by: Siamang

and what?

Comment by: skikid

Jack

I listened to your message (sermon?). A couple of questions for you…
1) In your first con of atheism… your point seemed to be (correct me if I am wrong here) that atheists cause anti-religious blood shed and you used communism and socialism as examples. My question here is along the lines of cause and effect. An atheist can be a capitalist atheist, so would it not be better to attribute those atrocities to governmental regimes rather than to atheism?

2) Your fourth point in cons of atheism seemed to me to be that atheists deal unreasonably with the evidence. There is evidence but atheists just don’t look at it correctly. What if someone who is atheist has looked at all the evidence and just came to a different conclusion?

Comment by: Ir

Hi Jack, unfortunately for some reason I can’t open the sermon file. Is there any chance of your tech person putting a copy up as an mp3 file? I’ve never had problems with those.

Jack wrote: if there is a God and he has given any evidence then we shouldn’t pre-judge the evidence by saying something like, “God has to present himself to me in a specific way or I’m not interested”.

I actually think this is a mischaracterization of the way thoughtful atheists assess evidence for God. It’s not so much that they entrench and say “Unless God presents himself this way I’m not interested”; it’s rather that they say “I find this presentation of ‘evidence’ is not logically consistent with what/who Christians are telling me God is and so it does not prove God’s existence to me”.

Comment by: skikid

Jack
Ir put it better than I would have as I am not an atheist… but I get the sense from reading this blog and listening to your sermon that what you consider the pros and cons of atheism and what non-believers consider them don’t line up 100%.
I completely agree that no one has a corner on evil. I guess I still have trouble with the analogy though… I think that there is a difference between some one who is Christian/Atheist doing a bad thing and a person doing a bad thing in the name of God (or Not God?). I am not sure that the many evils committed by the oppressive regimes you mentioned were the same as committing evil in the name of God (I know that Jesus never wanted violence I am just have trouble seeing them as the same).
Thanks for your response. :)
Ir… I got the sermon using windows media player too.

Comment by: Ir

thanks, skikid. I think my computer being messed up must be the problem since the file is working for you and Jack.

Comment by: TXatheist

Sorry, typo, that wasn’t atheism causing the bloodshed.

Comment by: Topher

In reference to comments 12 - 17 (sorry, I seem to have regressed 10 comments)

So do you consider the Bible to a historically correct book? I know many do not value the Bible as being 100% true, but do value its historical content.

My point is that to say that the fact that Jesus was an actual man that walked the earth is hard to deny. The Bible itself, for historical purposes only, is hard to dispute. The writings of Flavius Josephus include the mentioning of Jesus as being a real person as well as many other accounts described in the Bible. The Koran speaks of Jesus. To my knowledge, there has never been an archeological discovery that his discredited the Bible’s historical value. So, under the assumption that Jesus actually walked the earth, and claimed the things he did, he is one of three things… a liar, a lunatic, or God.

I do not deny the fact that people in the past, present and future will believe that they themselves are a god. That is their belief/religion. But I am not speaking of those people. I am speaking of people that deny specifically that Jesus is God, yet value his teachings. To them, Jesus is either a liar, or crazy. I personally would not value the words of any man that I regarded as a fake or false god, or a man that claimed to be something that I don’t believe exists.

Think about some of the things that Bible claims Jesus said…

“I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there” and it will move.”

“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me”

“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you”

Would you even listen to a man like this today? A man that claims to have miraculously healed the sick & crippled, raised the dead from the grave, born from a virgin mother, fed 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes, walks on water, restores sight to the blind and turns water into wine? Would you trust a man that claimed that he would die, yet rise again? He claimed he was God. Not a god, not one of many gods, not a sort of god, but THE GOD. The one & only! He claimed to have created the entire world, to have existed before life, to rule the universe, to have supreme power over all things, to have lived a perfect, sinless life. These are not the claims of a normal man; these are the claims of a liar, a lunatic, or God himself.

If I was to walk up to you on the street, and claim these things to you what would you call me?

As for the Superman statement — sure, we can attribute a fictitious character with fictitious morals… but where did the morals come from? Who defines what is “good” and “bad.” Where is the standard? Why is Superman good? How do we know that Lex isn’t the “good” one? I think this is an entirely different debate as to where morals come from, but a good one. If there is no God, then why do you believe that stealing or murder is wrong?

Comment by: Topher

I’ve been an avid reader, just never had anything that I thought was beneficial till yesterday

Comment by: TXatheist

It doesn’t make sense to me. I won’t choose anybody in the flesh or in a book over my family. I don’t find a requirement but a command to submit and that’s part of the problem I have with religion. To me, it’s not submitting in behaving well, but submitting to an alleged authority. On the other topic I did post something exactly to your point. A muslim is going to be killed for converting to xianity. To me that’s horrible. I also don’t have to think about Islam to hear stories of people being ostracized from their family for leaving the religion, it happens in xianity too. As far as the Jesus paradox, liar, lunatic or god, I choose choice D, he never existed. If you made the claims above I’d call you David Koresh, Charles Manson or the latest guy who thought he was the messiah forming a cult. Honestly, that’s what I’d believe.

Comment by: Bruce Lofland

I believe that passage (Matt 10:32-36) is talking about their spiritual family, not their blood relatives. In other words it is talking about fellow jews. Jesus is saying that the younger generation (Christian jews) will rebel against the older generation (traditional jews) as a result of His teachings. He was telling His disciples that they were going to make their fellow jews mad at each other because His teaching goes against the grain of tradition.

TXatheist, your comment about not wanting to submit to an alleged authority reminds me of this story from my own journey:

I attended chruch for many years before becoming a Christian. I was at church one Sunday a few years ago helping take care of the toddlers during service. One of the boys was in timeout when I arrived. He had been told that he had to say he was sorry before he could get out of timeout. He had his arms crossed with a very stern look on his face. When I saw that I thought to myself, “I am just like that.” I discovered that giving in to the Christian sales pitch was a control issue for me. After seeing myself in this light I decided that I need to get out of the spiritual timeout that I had placed myself in. I had not “won” anything by saying no to their message. It was at that point that I gave becoming a Christian serious consideration.

This was just my experience and I am not trying to tell you what you should do, I am just relating that I have felt the same way.

Comment by: Jack

ReTXathiest (#25)

Thanks for listening to the message and giving valuable feedback. I certainly appreciate the time you took to think critically about what I said. I hope you don’t have too much head pain from all the head banging you did on the wall!

I’m going to try to respond to each of your comments in order but its going to take a few days to do a decent job of giving my thoughts so please be patient. I’ll number my responses so we can refer to them:

1. Atheism, Religion and Oppression - I don’t see any disagreement between us. My point is that people write off Christianity because they think it has caused oppression but I think people cause oppression and misuse Christianity as an excuse. The same is true of Atheism as you said, “That was atheism causing the bloodshed”. So I think we’re definitely in the same spot on that issue.

2. Why Am I Here - You said, “My parents had sex and wanted me. Their genetics allowed it. My wife and I did the same thing. We wanted a kid and got one luckily.” I should have said in my message that many people find the answers unsatisfying that Atheists give to ultimate questions like “Why am I here?”. My mistake in not being more clear. Thanks for pointing that out.

3. More Purpose Upon Conversion - This one is, of course, a matter of opinion but I would say that my experience of going from skepticism about God to belief in God dramatically changed my sense of hope and purpose. My life was very me-centered before I become a Christ-follower and now I’m much more concerned about others and want to alleviate suffering, oppression and despair. I didn’t grow up going to church so my becoming a Christ-follower was a pretty big turn in the road for me and the changes were pretty significant.

4. Many Messiahs Fulfilled the Prophecies (Adonis, Isis, Mithra, Hercules, etc…) - from what I know aobut these characters, I don’t think there is much evidence that they fulfilled many Old Testament messianic prophecies. Please give references for those Old Testament prophecies that these characters fulfilled so I can respond.

5. People Who Wrote After Isaiah 53 Fabricated Jesus’ Fulfillment of Messianic Prophecy - The fabrication theory of the origin of the New Testament is one that I’ve certainly given careful consideration. The problem with the theory is that we have no evidence of it and I tend to avoid making conclusions in the absense of evidence. By evidence I mean that there isn’t any documentary evidence of any writer contemporary to the writers of the New Testament that would indicate that the writers fabricated what they wrote. For instance, I would take notice if there was a first century historian or other writer who revealed that Jesus didn’t exist. Perhpas that first century writer might say that Jesus was created on paper by his followers so that he fit the Old Testament prophecies. Unfortunately there isn’t any first century writer (i.e. contemporary to the events of the time of Jesus) who has been found to say that. I would refer you to the following for a much more thorough explanation on this issue: http://www.ibri.org/RRs/RR001/01easter.htm

6. Adonis, Isis, Mithra, Hercules are Similar to Jesus and Therefore New Testament Writers Copied from Them - Although you didn’t say this directly, I’ve heard this over the years and studied it carefully but don’t think it’s a persuasive argument on the facts or logically. The core issue for me is that similarity doesn’t prove descent. In other words, if the next door neighbor’s son looks like me it doesn’t mean I’m his father. Similarly, if a relgious idea is in vogue in the first century it doesn’t mean that Jesus or New Testament writers borrowed from it and there is no evidence that they did except what some consider to be similarities. You may want to take a look at the following article that talks about those similarities http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/yama.html.

7. Pierced Does or Does Not Translate to Crucify - Maybe I’m misunderstanding you here but are you saying that Pierced is mistranslated in Isaiah 53:5? If so, I’m impressed that you’ve studied Hebrew! I studied Hebrew in Seminary and would be very interested in learning your approach to Isaiah 53:5. If instead you’re saying that pierced as a concept isn’t the same as crucify then I would agree and would say that’s not what I think I said in my sermon. In my sermon I said that the word pierced is a surprising term to use and fits well with the idea of crucify. I was trying to make the point that there are many ways that someone can be killed and the Old Testament uses a bunch of words to describe killing. For instance, I could say that someone was bludgeoned, decapitated, suffocated, etc… or more generically killed, murdered, etc… It’s striking to me that none of those terms were used in Isaiah 53:5 but rather the term pierce which is surprising to me because it fits well with the idea of crucifixtion in which the body is repeatedly pierced as it is nailed.

That’s all for right now…have to get the kids up! I’ll be back later with more responses to what you’ve written.

Comment by: Daz

Tom ” I think many in the unbelieving camp have the impression that there ought to be some sort of “scientific proof” of Jesus’ existence, message, claims, etc.”

I have to respectfully disagree. Many of us are not looking for a scientifically repeatable experiment or such. For me it would help immeasurably if we had the writings of disinterested or even hostile witneses who lived at the same time of Jesus. Instead we have little bits of anecdotes (Flavius, Josephus etc) written decades later. For example what about all those in the book of Matthew who came out of their graves when Jesus died? How come this is the only so-called attestation to what would have been a rather stupendous event?

Comment by: Topher

Wow…

Tom — I got a lot from your analysis. I can honestly say that what I said is not something that I “learned” from anyone, I’ve read a couple books and it’s just what makes sense to me, but I see how it might not be the best approach. I grew up believing that a man named Jesus did exist, so it is easier for me to use that logic. My goal wasn’t really to prove that Jesus existed, but more to say that if a person believes he did exist (God or not), that it would be hard to only accept his teachings.

TX & Ir — I think I may have misled you by my comment about the verses TX posted from Matthew. I’m not sure there is a proper way of removing my foot from my mouth, so I will leave it at I’m sorry for the misdirection. My hearts intent was not to make choosing Christ sound like a negative thing.

Comment by: TXatheist

It’s cool but I’ve never been one to use cliches even though Texas has bunches of them. What does rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic mean? Why bother straightening things up when the ship is going to sink??

Comment by: Jack

TXathiest (#25)

Just a heads up that I’m working on “The God Movie” and Paul Doland (the two sources you mentioned in #25). I’ll be back soon with more thoughts on your post. Thanks again for your feedback.

Comment by: NCxian

test

Comment by: Ir

Hey Jack, I was looking into how to change the file extension and ran across some ‘conversion’ software I didn’t know I had that evidently converts WMAs into mp3s - I tried running it and it worked, so now I’ll be able to listen to the sermon.

Thanks for your help.

Comment by: TXatheist

I couldn’t get the leader link to work. I went to the basic web page and saw william lane craig. Gotta be honest I find that man irritating to say the least.

Comment by: Ir

Jack, I did listen to the sermon. You sound very personable and the sermon is nicely organized. I liked what you said about the pros of atheism. If I may comment on the rest of the sermon, starting with the cons of atheism:

Cons of atheism:

1) Atheists have committed bloodshed in the name of non-belief. Some have, but so have some Christians so that ‘con’ applies equally to atheists and Christians.

If I can respond with an analogy:

Suppose you say to me “Hey, you have a real problem with that car of yours. You continually need to buy gas for it. You should get a car like mine!” Yet your car takes gas too….hmmm. Do you think I would be persuaded by your argument to sell my car and get one like yours?

2) Atheists have faith (that people don’t drive into them). Arguable that that’s faith faith rather than hope — but anyway, so do Christians so that ‘con’ applies equally to both positions. Actually it applies more to Christians because Christians are the ones who talk to a Person they can’t see, hear, feel or touch (usually). So that’s more of a Christian ‘con’ than an atheist one, in my opinion.

So — not only does your car take gas, it has lower mileage than mine! Do you think I would be persuaded by your argument to sell my car and buy one like yours?

3) Atheists can’t prove God doesn’t exist. True, but Christians can’t prove God exists so that ‘con’ applies equally to both positions.

I refer you to my response to 1).

4) Atheists can’t answer ultimate questions. I don’t have ultimate questions, Jack, so this isn’t a ‘con’ for me. I have priorities and values and I organize my life accordingly.

You’re trying to sell me a car but actually I have a 24/7 driver who takes me anywhere I want to go, anytime. So I don’t need a car. Do you think I’m likely to buy one?

5) Christians have more purpose and hope now than they had as an atheist. Well, I’m happy for them, but I don’t lack a sense of hope and purpose in my own life. I have a family to take care of and beyond that I can get involved in making the world a better place if I choose to.

You say that some people are happier now they’ve traded in my kind of car for yours. Well, great, but I’m happy with my car. Do you think I’m going to trade it in just because other people did and report good results, given that I’m happy with what I have?

(That reminds me of this amazing survey I once got about my car with those “strongly agree to strongly disagree” boxes to check — it had statements like “I feel more fulfilled when I’m driving this car” — wow, it was unbelievable the things they were hoping people attributed to their car! But I digress…)

6) Atheists tend to deal unreasonably with the evidence for the existence of God.

VI) Buried with the rich — well, this gets to a general point of mine. Jesus couldn’t control everything about how his life went but the gospel authors had full control of how they reported his life and they knew he was supposed to fulfill the prophecies. How can I be sure the story didn’t (perhaps with no fraudulent intent) get fit to the prophecies as it was told and retold? And buried with the rich is a late detail, I think, only in John’s gospel? Correct me if I’m wrong about that, though.

The Atheist response to the evidence: Atheists are not interested unless God will prove himself in the specific ways they demand.

Someone raised this point on OTM’s site — please go read my response, which is comment #120 of Ex-Christian Says Christians No Better Than Atheists.

Re: your crisis of faith. (Thanks for sharing about that) You considered the evidence for your faith and decided “Yes, it really is strong”. And you found you didn’t understand grace. Well, I did understand grace and I was a Christian for over 15 years. When I started to have doubts a few years ago then, like you, I considered the evidence. But unlike you I found that it was not strong enough and so the only honest response I could make was “I’m not sure about any of this anymore”.

Thanks for sharing the sermon with us. I’d be interested to hear your response to my response, as it were :)

(If you want we can take this to the new discussion board)

Comment by: Jack

Re: TXathiest (#25)

I’m going to continue to give my thoughts about what you said in #25…I talked about the first seven and here is the eighth…sorry for the long delay in getting back to you but this one too awhile to assemble!

8. Scientific facts from the bible — Thanks for your thoughts on this subject. I’m glad you agree that there are some scientific facts that exist in the Bible before they were discovered by humans, although I understand that you believe they are vague. You mention that you understand that staying away from pork was prohibited but I was talking much more broadly than that when I gave the message. Unfortunately I can’t give much detail when I speak or people will snooze big time! I hope I can give you some more concrete facts that will help you see whether you still think the scientific facts revealed in the Bible before discovery by humanity are vague.

What I will provide here is from William Cairney in “Evidence for Faith”…he’s the guy I mentioned in my message and he has a Phd from Cornell about 10 years before I was there (I graduated in the 80’s) so I feel some connection to him! He was a Biology Professor at the Air Force Academy — I think he’s retired now - and authored more than twenty professional publications in the fields of hyperbaric oxygen applications, aerospace and environmental physiology and human factors in aerospace operations…in other words he’s one smart guy!

Dr. Cairney describes how the microscope was invented in the 1600’s but no one made the connection between what was observed in the early microscopes and the spread of disease until Robert Koch’s ground-breaking work about 130 years ago. Furthermore, Cairney says that the first viruses were observed only about 70 years ago. Against that backdrop of the history of microbiology we have this guy Moses stumbling through the desert leading a bunch of complaining rebellious people spanning four decades at a time about 3,500 years ago. I know your next point in #25 is that Moses didn’t write the first five books but if we assume he didn’t, even the most radical scholars put the first five books of the Bible at least 2,500 years old….that’s still 2,370 years before Koch and 2,430 years before the first viruses were observed. As I said earlier you mentioned pork which is from an unclean animal. However, you may not be aware of the fact that the list of clean and unclean animals is much larger than just focusing on pigs. Cairney lists the following unclean animals based on Mosaic prohibitions:

- Avoid any animal that did not both chew the cud and have split hoofs: e.g. swine, horses, camels, etc…
- Avoid any animal going on paws: e.g. cats (domestic and wild), dogs (domestic and wild) , etc…
- Avoid any aquatic or marine creature without both fins and scales: e.g shellfish (oysters, clams, etc..), crustaceans (e.g. lobster, crab, crayfish, shrimp), catfish, etc…
- Avoid birds of prey: e.g. eagles, hawks, owls, falcons, etc…
- Avoid reptiles and falcons: e.g. snakes, turtles, lizards, frogs, etc…
- Avoid rodents: e.g. rabbits, mice, rats, etc…

Cairney also explains that the people of Israel wouldn’t have a bland palate because they still had clean foods including cattle, sheep, goats, deer, fish with fins and scales and other fowl not on the list above. After showing how long and detailed the lists are, he points out in Leviticus 11:24-28 that these animals shouldn’t just be avoided as food sources but also that carcasses of these animals shouldn’t be touched or picked up. Interestingly, the verses imply that touching doesn’t make you as unclean as picking up the carcass. Cairney next explains the surprising medical distinctions between the clean and unclean animals. He explains in detail the medical dangers of the animals in the unclean category which includes the risk of just touching an animal carcass. He focuses on pigs first and points out the tapeworm cysts can be transmitted from poorly cooked meat as well as the more commonly known trichinosis which can also be transmitted in the same way. He says Erysipelas and Typhoid can be transmitted by touching the carcass of the animal and Cairney points out the pigs are highly susceptible to Typhoid. The aquatic and marine creatures are virtually all bottom-feeders and scavengers in shallow water where human civilization then and now deposits garbage and raw sewage. I’m sure you can guess that ancient fishing techniques didn’t take into account the dangers of fishing in shallow areas near coastal centers of civilization where human and animal waste would be in high concentrations. Cairney explains that these animals have historically been a potent source of typhoid (he says the same thing about turtles, lizards and frogs which are unclean). He next moves on to rodents and explains that they are a reservoir for some of the worst diseases known to humanity. Cairney’s approach to birds of prey (and cats) is interesting because on the surface you’d think they are OK but he points out that they eat rodents and therefore are potentially as dangerous as they are! He ends with pointing out that dogs have a propensity for excreta and fungal skin pathogens easily transmitted to humans by touching their carcasses.

Cairney next turns his attention to plant pathology and points out that constant replanting of the same crop year after year creates an environment for plant disease to flourish. Mosaic law required farmers to leave their fields fallow for one year out of every seven. The weeds would grow during that year and then be plowed under which roughly mimics the disease control benefits of crop rotation.

Cairney also points out an odd practice of smashing open earthen jars that came into contact with a dead human body. Oddly enough, the laws indicate that clothing is to be washed but can be reused yet earthen jars were to be destroyed. Why destroy perfectly good jars? Why not just clean them since they couldn’t be replace by a quick trip to Jars-R-Us? Cairney points out that the jars were porous and could only be medically safe after sterilization in pressurized steam.

There are other laws about the quarantine of those with infectious diseases and the laws are surprisingly effective at making the distinction between which diseases are infectious and which are not. I could give all the detail on this as I did above but suffice it to say that the level of detail of the laws is similar and they are parallel with modern science.

So, how did Moses come up with these laws? Let’s first examine the idea that he got them from Egypt where he grew up and had the benefit of extensive education and training. The only problem is that the information we have from the time reveals no such medical education available. Dr. McMillen points out in “None of These Diseases” that the Papyrus Ebers, an Egyptian medical book written around 1,552 BC, included remedies like treating an embedded splinter with worms’ blood and dung. McMillen also writes that other diseases were treated with lizards’ blood, swines teeth and excreta from humans, donkeys, antelopes, dogs, cats and even flies (I’d hate to be the guy who had to harvest fly dung!). With that background Moses takes a major turn in the road and creates laws that are strikingly different and profoundly effective at disease suppression, eradicating plant pathology and infectious disease control.

The next possibility is that Moses figured out these laws by his own research. But, as Cairney points out, the difficulty is that he would have to know eight areas of medical knowledge including knowing about microbiology without seeing it, that microscopic organisms can survive in washed clay pots, that washing and drying clothing in sunlight can kill microorganisms, knowing the impact on food chains of eating animals could have been infected by other animal food sources, etc… I find this explanation very hard to accept although I grant that they are statistically possible (probably in the one in a trillion level of probability). I find myself instead concluding that there is something special about what Moses wrote. The Bible says about itself that God influenced human authors to write the books and I find that more plausible as an explanation since the Bible has scientific facts before they were discovered by humans and so many of them that it’s nearly impossible to have the authors figure them out by chance.

Sorry to have gone on so long on one point but I don’t think any shorter length of answer would do justice to the subject. Also, I’ve left out plenty of other examples of scientific facts in the Bible before they were discovered because my hands hurt from typing! Again, sorry to be so slow in getting this into the blog…I will work on the other points in your #25 entry soon!

Comment by: Ir

Great point, skikid. I copied the discussion (most of it) over to this thread on the discussion board:

Jack’s sermon on Hemant and the Pros and Cons of Atheism

I suggest we continue it there.