The Complaint Department Is Closed #7

GII’s next attempt to show God is imaginary is actually an argument which, if valid, would show just that, or at least cause one to doubt. Up to now, the proofs, even if true would not prove God did not exist, but only that the attributes we assign to God have not been true. Proof number seven attempts to draw parallels between Santa Claus, Joseph Smith’s claims on which he founded Mormonism, Muhammad’s claims on which he founded Islam, and Jesus of Nazareth. Why do we reject the truth of Santa, Mormonism, and Islam (for those who have critically investigated their truth claims), but not the accounts for Jesus of Nazareth? Is the rejection of the three arbitrary, or well grounded?

Proof number 7: Understanding Religious Delusion

GII begins the proof recounting the story of Santa Claus:

…who lives at the North Pole.  He lives there with his wife and a bunch of elves.  During the year, he and the elves build toys.  Then, on Christmas Eve, he loads up a sack with all the toys.  He puts the sack in his sleigh.  He hitches up eight (or possibly nine) flying reindeer.  He then flies from house to house, landing on the rooftops of each one.  He gets out with his sack and climbs down the chimney.  He leaves toys for the children of the household.  He climbs back up the chimney, gets back in his sleigh, and flies to the next house.  He does this all around the world in one night.  Then he flies back to the North Pole to repeat the cycle next year.

GII again uses the hypothetical discussion to illustrate its point.  “[L]et’s say that I am an adult, and I am your friend, and I reveal to you that I believe that this story is true. I believe it with all my heart. And I try to talk about it with you and convert you to believe it as I do.  What would you think of me? You would think that I am delusional, and rightly so.”  GII defines “delusional” as “A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence”.  They claim is this definition comes from a dictionary, and while I did not scour the internet attempting to match the definition given, I was unable to find their definition despite the multiple sources I did find.  Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines “delusion” as: “a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary”.  I will not speculate as to the source or reason for using a loose definition, but for the sake of argument we will momentarily use it, since eventually it unravels their own case (anyone with any background in philosophy or critical thinking already sees it coming).

Since you are my friend, you might try to help me realize that my belief in Santa is a delusion. The way that you would try to do that is by asking me some questions. For example, you might say to me:

• “But how can the sleigh carry enough toys for everyone in the world?” I say to you that the sleigh is magical. It has the ability to do this intrinsically.
• “How does Santa get into houses and apartments that don’t have chimneys?” I say that Santa can make chimneys appear, as shown to all of us in the movie The Santa Clause.
• “How does Santa get down the chimney if there’s a fire in the fireplace?” I say that Santa has a special flame-resistant suit, and it cleans itself too.
• “Why doesn’t the security system detect Santa?” Santa is invisible to security systems.
• “How can Santa travel fast enough to visit every child in one night?” Santa is timeless.
• “How can Santa know whether every child has been bad or good?” Santa is omniscient.
• “Why are the toys distributed so unevenly? Why does Santa deliver more toys to rich kids, even if they are bad, than he ever gives to poor kids?” There is no way for us to understand the mysteries of Santa because we are mere mortals, but Santa has his reasons. For example, perhaps poor children would be unable to handle a flood of expensive electronic toys. How would they afford the batteries? So Santa spares them this burden.

These are all quite logical questions that you have asked. I have answered all of them for you. I am wondering why you can’t see what I see, and you are wondering how I can be so insane.

 Are these reasonable questions?  I think so, I would probably ask these myself if I were in this same position.  But the question before us is, on what basis can we discount the person who as an adult, who truly believes a story we understand to be fantasy as reality?  For one, what reasons does the person believing the story of Santa have to believe it to be true?  I suppose he could cite oral tradition, written tales, or movies such as The Santa Clause.  However the oral tradition of Santa is knowingly and intentionally rooted in fantasy.  The people telling, writing, and cinemizing the story know they are recounting a work of fiction.  There is no intent to relay their story as historical account.  The story itself is a story for children, all of whom at some point are enlightened on the “truth” of the evasive Mr. Claus.  The history of Santa is not lost either.  There was a real man Saint Nicholas whose life birthed the fictional account, but is understood to not be the same “St. Nick” whom little children make their Christmas requests known at the mall.

Next, GII recounts the history of Mormonism as described by Joseph Smith Jr.  Since GII rarely uses citation of where it culls its information, it is hard to say why certain things are left out, added, or worded the way they are.  Common to atheist websites attempting to debunk religion, they mainly rely on one another for information, and as such get histories and details wrong.  Granted, the details about the foundation of the Mormon church which are incorrect are negligible, nevertheless accuracy for the purpose of criticism is necessary, debunking a strawman debunks nothing.  The Mormonism Research Ministry (MRM), is a ministry focusing on critical evaluation of the differences between Mormonism and biblical Christianity.  Neither time nor space will allow for a careful handling of the claims of Smith and the Mormon church.  I will defer to MRM’s website for evaluation of the foundation of Mormonism and Smith’s claims and encourage readers to follow-up on the following claims listed by GII from the hypothetical perspective of Smith:

• I was in my room one night.Suddenly, my room became exceedingly bright.
• Next thing I know there is an angel in my room.
• He tells me an amazing story.
• He says that there is a set of ancient golden plates buried in the side of a hill in New York.
• On them are the books of a lost race of Jewish people who inhabited North America.
• These plates bear inscriptions in the foreign language of these people.
• Eventually the angel leads me to the plates and lets me take them home.
• Even though the plates are in a foreign language, the angel helps me to decipher and translate them.
• Then the plates are taken up into heaven, never to be seen again.
• I have the book that I translated from the plates.
• It tells of amazing things — an entire civilization of Jewish people living here in the United States 2,000 years ago.
• And the resurrected Jesus came and visited these people!
• I also showed the golden plates to a number of real people who are my eye witnesses, and I have their signed attestations that they did, in fact, see and touch the plates before the plates were taken up into heaven.

I do not argue with GII’s assessment of Mormonism, I believe the followers of Joseph Smith are deeply mistaken and have taken far too much stock in his claims.  There are many internal inconsistencies within the Book of Mormon and the accompanying body of works the church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) consider divinely inspired as well as the historical vacancies GII points out.  The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM) has a wealth of information regarding the problems with the Book of Mormon itself as well as other information regarding Mormonism in general.

However, there are problems in citing the LDS founder’s testimony as a proof against the existence of God.  To those theists not governed by political correctness, a citation of the LDS beliefs for use for refutation is illegitimate.  The LDS church is not representative of Christianity though they claim to be.  There are vast differences in core beliefs, such as LDS adherence to polytheism and the nature of God, that God is a physical being of flesh and bone.  Some LDS beliefs are logically impossible and internal inconsistencies render any authority to truth null and void.

GII further offers the founding of Islam by Muhammad.  A detailed treatment of this citation, the formulation and truth claims of Islam, as with the LDS above involves lengthy discourse which neither time nor space allow.  I will again refer the reader to CARM’s work on the issues surrounding Islam, Muhammad and his visions, and the claims of Islam.

GII’s final example is that of the Christian story.  Below is their version of Christianity’s founding, including factually inaccurate details as above with the LDS and Muslim foundings.  I will insert corrections within the quotation in parentheses.

• God inseminated a virgin named Mary, in order to bring his son incarnate into our world. (Mary was not inseminated)
• Mary and her fiancé, Joseph, had to travel to Bethlehem to register for the census. There Mary gave birth to the Son of God.
• God put a star in the sky to guide people to the baby. (God used a star)
• In a dream God told Joseph to take his family to Egypt. Then God stood by and watched as Herod killed thousands and thousands of babies in Israel in an attempt to kill Jesus. (Thousands and thousands is assumed.  The town of Bethlehem was a very small town with only a few hundred residents at most.  Reasonably there might have been a couple dozen children slain, while that is brutal in itself, it is not thousands.  This also explains why there is no record of the incident outside the NT, life was cheap, Bethlehem was small, and the number of children killed was nominal)
• As a man, God’s son claimed that he was God incarnate: “I am the way, the truth and the life,” he said.
• This man performed many miracles. He healed lots of sick people. He turned water into wine. These miracles prove that he is God.
• But he was eventually given the death sentence and killed by crucifixion.
• His body was placed in a tomb.
• But three days later, the tomb was empty.
• And the man, alive once again but still with his wounds (so anyone who doubted could see them and touch them), appeared to many people in many places. (His body still had wounds because it was the same body, not to prove a point)
• Then he ascended into heaven and now sits at the right hand of God the father almighty, never to be seen again. (He will be seen again)
• Today you can have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. You can pray to this man and he will answer your prayers. He will cure your diseases, rescue you from emergencies, help you make important business and family decisions, comfort you in times of worry and grief, etc. (This is a view held by many Christians, however the Bible never speaks of God as being our genie.  See: The Complaint Department Is Closed #1)
• This man will also give you eternal life, and if you are good he has a place for you in heaven after you die. (Salvation is not achieved by doing good.  See: Essentials Of Christianity 2)
• The reason we know all this is because, after the man died, four people named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote accounts of the man’s life. Their written attestations are proof of the veracity of this story.  (The accounts of Jesus’ life, teachings, and acts were well-known and well circulated, the Gospel accounts merely put to paper what was already known)

While the differences may seem trivial, they are important.  GII concludes:

How do the four billion non-Christians know, with complete certainty, that the Christian story is imaginary? Because the Christian story is just like the Santa story, the Mormon story and the Muslim story. There is the magical insemination, the magical star, the magical dreams, the magical miracles, the magical resurrection, the magical ascension and so on.

The differences between the Christian story and those of Santa, Mormonism, and Islam are tremendous.  While Smith and Muhammad claim to have experienced divine interaction, they were alone when it happened, Jesus’ miracles were done in the open with scores of witnesses, even by those hostile to Jesus and His message: Matthew 12:24 for example, the Pharisee’s did not deny the miracles took place, but questioned how.  It is suspected Muhammad was an epileptic who indulged in hallucinogenic drugs, and Smith had a reputation of poor and dishonest character.  While neither testimony can be discounted on these details alone, the writings themselves serve to discredit their testimonies.  Many historical inaccuracies plague both the Qur’an and Book of Mormon, a problem which the Bible does not suffer.

Jesus’ existence cannot be disputed.  There is far too much historical attestation to the contrary.  Belief in His miracles and resurrection can likewise be well grounded from the historical record.  Evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is plentiful.  See for example some of the works of Gary Habermas who has written extensively on the issue: Experiences of The Risen Jesus, Jesus Resurrection and Contemporary Criticism: Part 1 and Part 2, with many books in print as well.  Habermas is also an expert in the field of NT criticism and the reliability of the NT accounts as historically accurate.  Another great resource is Mike Licona from RisenJesus.com who has also written proficiently on the issue of Jesus’ resurrection and His divinity.  William Lane Craig of ReasonableFaith.org is an expert in the field of Jesus resurrection (must complete a free registration to view articles) and his credentials are noteworthy.

I would like now to address the tack GII has taken with this proof, namely that the belief in theism is delusional.  Remember the definition of delusional: “A persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary.”  GII’s entire case rests on a circular argument, a logical fallacy.  It claims religious belief is delusion, which by definition is a belief in a false proposition.  GII’s argument assumes the conclusion it is trying to prove.  GII’s entire argument commits the logical fallacy of “Begging the Question“.  To prove religious beliefs are delusional it must prove religious beliefs are false.  Just because GII does not find compelling the arguments for the resurrection of Jesus, or arguments for the existence of God such as the Cosmological Argument in all its variants, or the Teleological argument does not render them without merit and vacuous.  They are real evidences which cannot be dismissed with the wave of a hand.  Simply comparing one religious belief (Christianity) to other religious beliefs (Mormonism, Islam), or a work of known fiction (Santa Claus), does nothing to prove any of the four false.  On this basis alone, regardless of GII’s factual errors, is enough to dispatch proof #7.