There is an excellent op-ed in today's Guardian by...

There is an excellent op-ed in today's Guardian by the Anglican priest, Giles Fraser.  Fraser is a high church liberal, political leftie  and also a professional philosopher.  When he gets stuff wrong it is usually because he has mixed up his leftiness with his orthodoxy.  He is often not helped by Guardian sub-editors putting silly headlines on his articles.  Fraser is a short and powerful looking man with little hair and lots of brain.  He delivered an excellent sermon one Christmas when he described the birth of one of his children (a messy business as I know from recent experience) to hammer home the humanity of Jesus.  It is unlikely His birth was any quieter and sanitised than any other, especially given it happened in a stable and not a hospital.

Fraser's point in today's article is that Islam is already 'reformed' in the historical sense.  When people say Islam needs a 'Reformation', what they really mean is that Islam needs an 'Enlightenment' to render it quiet and harmless (and probably useless).  While we are right to worry about Islamic fanatics (and wrong to pretend that they are somehow not really Islamic), I am not sure Christians are wise to be calling for the neutering of Islam as a whole.  In many ways, it might be out best ally against the even more dangerous threat of extremist secularisation.  As for which of the two religions is the theologically correct, I am pretty confident that we can win that one using argument rather than violence.

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After Theowiki merged with Wikipedia, Peter Kirby's latest project is ErrancyWiki. He recently copped some abuse on the Secular Web for attacking 1001 Errors of the Bible which is a rambling effort from someone who has way too much time and way too little expertise. Anyway, Peter was right on the money to nail 1001 Errors so I am not sure what his new site is supposed to achieve. I'm not an inerrantist and the whole subject bores me. I would have thought that Peter feels the same way. He usually tries to interact with scholarship and you will find very few scholars who bother with this sort of thing either. Errancy is a game played by fundamentalist atheists and very conservative Christians which shouldn't be of any interest to the rest of us.

The whole Wiki project is deeply suspect anyway. The idea that anyone can declare themselves an expert and then amend the work of a real expert is just plain crazy. My own experience there was mercifully brief as I quickly realised the site was in the hands of people determined to push their agenda, and to hell with scholarship. I thought it might be helpful to edit the article on the Great Library of Alexandria. Trouble was a German atheist was trying to put in lots of entries making Christianity look as bad as possible and kept amending my article. It has now been amended again (by the same guy) to make it seem that Christians were responsible for the destruction of the library when I have all but proved that this cannot be the case. The atheist is now 'Chief Research Officer' of Wikipedia and can happily go on peddling his anti-Christian propaganda however he likes.

Of course, Wikipedia has set itself up as an authority and you get pointed to it increasingly often. My advice: don't believe a word you read there.

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I have been buried in libraries for half the week and riveted by the cricket for the remainder, so must apologise for the continuing infrequency of these entries. Here's some controversy to make up for it.

I have a good friend who is very intelligent and an atheist. He has moved through many beliefs in his time and has now decided that he has no choice but to buy into the whole naturalistic caboodle. He takes no great pleasure from this but feels he has been compelled into his position by the evidence presented to him. He is a fully consistent atheist and materialist who also denies freewill and thinks that the 'self' is an illusionary epiphenomenum of brain states. No matter that I find all this deeply implausible, that is where he stands. However, he is not particularly pleased by this and agrees that it is a pretty grim philosophy for life. He has no desire to convert people to his views (beyond the entertainment value of a good argument) and generally thinks religion is a good thing. He does not make the mistake of confusing certain elements of religious belief or practice with which he has problems with the whole thing.

My point is this. I can see why someone might be an atheist (although I'd disagree with them) but I cannot for the life of me see why any knowledgeable and mature adult should want to be an atheist or want other people to be.

The first reason for wanting reject God is that it might give a sense of liberation. I'd expect this from adolescents chaffing at the bit and wanting to go out and have sex with anything that moves. However, I would also expect them to grow out of it once they have finished growing up and realised that there is more to life than sex, drugs and libertarianism. As an adult, perhaps, having a lot of money and wanting to make more of it might also make someone want God out the picture. We often hear from individuals who think they have been 'damaged' by a religious upbringing and have hence rejected religion. Ironically, science (as we learn from Steven Pinker and others) would say that these people are sad cases due to their genes and that their upbringing was irrelevant. The fact that most people who have had religious upbringings are perfectly well adjusted and often religious themselves rather kills the 'damage' argument as well.

A second reason for wanting to be an atheist is a confused idea of history. If you have bought into the various anti-clerical myths you might see religion as a bad thing and hence reject it. The trouble is that the way people cling so tenuously to these myths when their errors are pointed out suggests these are just providing ballast for an already existing idea.

Thirdly, there is politics. In the US in particular, the defence of secularism has become a battle against Bush by proxy. I do not want to get mixed up in a foreign dispute but I do fail to see why disagreeing with Republican policies or even the religious right should encourage anyone to reject religion altogether. That said, American activist atheism is a minority sport more deserving of pity than contempt. It is also built on the huge misconception that church/state separation is bad for church. In fact, as the UK's state religion shows, it is the best thing ever to happen to US Christians. They should be guarding it assiduously.

Fourth, I suppose, is the feeling that religion just gets in the way of sex and shopping, the two major concerns of our society. But most of these people do not want to be atheists, they just don't want to think too hard about hard questions. When they do, many find themselves drawn to Alpha Courses and realising they do want more from life than endless distractions.

So, why would anyone want to be an atheist? Why does anyone want to spread atheism? Is it all just teenage foolishness, historical ignorance and lefties with a bee in their bonnet? Frankly, I have no idea and would welcome suggestions.

Comments or questions? Post them at Bede's dedicated yahoo group.

A reader has kindly sent me this link to a site put together by a computer programmer on information in the genome. I was struck that some of his thoughts have run along similar lines to mine on the genetic language and random mutation. However, I received some very interesting feedback to the Yahoo group from a Christian molecular biologist which might shed some light on how mutation works in practice. In short, we have many copies of each gene of which we are only using one leaving the others free to mutate without causing trouble. I'm not user I understand how these mutated genes get switched on or why it would be good if they did, but the picture does seem to be more complicated than I, or the page I linked to above, imagined.

I have just finished Ian Barbours's book When Science Meets Religion (SPCK, 2000) and I thought it was rather good. Barbour splits all science/religion interaction into the categories of Conflict, Independence, Dialogue and Intergration which sounds a bit artificial but works reasonably well. Each chapter of the book (on evolution, the big bang, quantum mechanics, neuroscience etc) is split into the four categories and the many different viewpoints of thinkers assigned to each one. Sometimes I disagree with Barbour's categorisation - he puts Michael Behe in the 'conflict' category with YECs rather than 'integration' where he belongs. This is because, like me, Barbour, thinks Behe is ultimately wrong and wants 'integration' to include ideas he agrees with.

The major strength of this book is the number of potted explanations of philosophers and theologians that Barbour summarises under each heading. Huge amounts of material have been condensed into a two hundred page book including process theology, creationism, dualism, the anthropic principle and loads of others that don't even have names. True, this is all in the manner of a brief introduction, but the notes double as a short bibliography allowing anyone to push off much further if they desire. In all, I strongly recommend this as a first book on science and religion. Also, if you think you have covered quite a lot of this ground through popular works and the internet, read Barbour to find that there is a great deal more territory out there than you probably imagined.

Comments or questions? Post them at Bede's dedicated yahoo group.

I have spent the last few weeks doing some serious leg work among the old libraries of Cambridge looking for sixteenth century scientific books. Actually, I have sat at desks and the librarians have kindly done a great deal of leg work for me. They have all been incredibly kind and helpful which makes research a great deal more fun than just slogging away on your own. Add to that being able to work in some of the world's most beautiful buildings (like the Wren Library) in Cambridge in the summer and it has been a very pleasant time.

Of course, part of the fun is being able to handle and look really closely at the rare books. Students doodled five hundred years ago and some of these are quite funny in their way. Likewise, they sometimes had very bad handwriting which is considerably less funny when you are trying to read it. Finally, the pang of recognition when you come across the signature of someone you have already studied closely is spooky. You never really get closer to people than when you handle the books they read and wrote in.

Some books transcend time and place. No matter that I had already read it in English, it was a real thrill when I was handed the first edition of Copernicus's De revolutionibus (1543) and read the first few lines. This copy was in pristine condition and had not moved from the Perne Library in Peterhouse since the 1590s, before Copernicus had even become controversial or well known. I know a good deal about Andrew Perne, its original owner, and seen his copy of Copernicus included in the list of his books made when he died (valued at a few shillings). To handle the actual book completed the circle. In fact, I had no reason to ask for it, but the librarian knew perfectly how much I would enjoy seeing it and handed it to me anyway.

On the subject of important texts, the Codex Sinaiticus, the world's earliest complete Bible, is to go on the web. I have often seen it in its cabinet in the British Library, pressing my nose against the glass to decipher the first line of John at which it is usually open (not easy to read by any means!). Glad that it is going to be more widely available.

Comments or questions? Post them at Bede's dedicated yahoo group.

Another exciting new project is Chris Price's Genre, Historicity, Date and Authorship of Acts. Chris is basically arguing that Acts is pretty much what it says it is and counters the various arguments that have been presented to suggest it is actually something else. For instance, a scholar called Professor Pervo has tried to sell the idea that Acts is an ancient Greek novel. This seems rather odd at first sight especially given that Acts is clearly the sequel to Luke's Gospel and that is certainly not a novel. If one is, the other would have to be as well. Chris marshals the evidence to demolish Pervo's idea but I would like to also see some analysis of the language used in novels and historical writing to see which is closer to the literary style of Acts.

Chapter two is the core of the work as it shows that Acts gets almost everything right as far as its history goes. It is also independent of Paul's letters but substantially agrees with them. Sure, Luke can make mistakes but he has a much better record than, say, the Venerable Bede and no one denies that he was a historian. As for Acts' date, it is certainly late first century and it was written by a companion of Paul. Sceptics make themselves look very silly with some of their efforts to escape the later conclusion. Again, Chris gives us heaps of evidence all of which is consistent with the standard conclusions. Finally, in chapter five, Chris looks at Steve Mason's novel suggestion that Acts is dependent on Josephus (a theory that was briefly Richard Carrier's clever idea of the month before he moved on the imaginary Homeric parallels in Mark).

All in all, Chris has produced the most comprehensive defence of the common-sense view of Acts since the relevant section in Donald Guthrie's NT Introduction. So next time a sceptic starts wittering away about how Acts is a second century fiction, you know where to come!

Comments or questions? Post them at Bede's dedicated yahoo group.

Some interesting develops in the land of the Jesus Myth.

Richard Carrier, the closest that the Internet Infidels have to a resident scholar, has announced his conversion to mythicism. Exactly why remains unclear but it is related to the old canard that you can reconstruct the New Testament with the Old Testament and thus there is no need to posit any underlying historical facts in the Gospels. While there is undoubtedly a lot of OT influence in the Gospels, I find the idea that Mark's artless and rather poorly executed hodge-podge of episodes is actually a devilishly clever retelling of many different bits of the OT rather unconvincing. Mark's Gospel reads like the recollection of lots of stories that the author has heard, thrown together into something approaching a narrative, which is exactly what church tradition says it is. Mark as the literary and creative genius just won't wash in the face of a text that was patently not written by anyone of the kind.

On the other hand, GakuseiDon has written a telling critique of Doherty's use of second century Christian apologists. Doherty likes to claim that many of these writers didn't believe in a historical Jesus and thus the idea that Jesus never existed was accepted in parts of the early church. GakuseiDon analyses the relevant texts and refutes Doherty's suggestion. But is it fatal to Doherty's entire thesis? Probably not. The dividing line that he can always point to (assuming he does retreat from his second century examples) is the Jewish revolt ending in 70AD. Aside from Paul, getting back before that is always hard (although Hebrews is a big help here), and the only way to kill mythicism is to prove that Paul knew of a historical Jesus. Given almost all scholars (all until Carrier's so far unexplained conversion) already think this is proven, the argument is unlikely to develop. What we need is someone very good at Greek to carefully analyse the relevant Pauline passages with all the critical apparatus that is available. Then we will see where we are. I suppose the advent of computerised texts does make this much easier, though.

Comments or questions? Post them at Bede's dedicated yahoo group.

Sometimes things happen that are so outrageous they beggar belief. Last year a terminally ill man won a court case in London that would mean that doctors would not be allowed to starve him to death if he lost the power of speech. Amazingly, the doctors appealed and even more amazingly, today they won. And the Appeal Court refused the right of appeal. I know the medical profession think they are gods, but this is ridiculous. We recently had the case of Professor Roy Meadows who was happy to let women rot in jail rather than admit he had made a mistake. Incredibly, even after he was struck off, his colleagues leapt to his defence. And the UK government say they won't cut the abortion age limit from 24 weeks because doctors haven't asked them too. And let's not forget Dr Harold Shipman who murdered dozens of his patients and used the aura of his profession to get a way with it for years.

I wonder what gets into the heads of these people but it is time the medical profession learnt so humility.


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Today at noon we observed a two minute silence for the victims of last Thursday's bombings in London. My wife ensured that I stopped tapping my keyboard for the requisite period and we watched the shots of a silent crowd at St Andrews where the Open Golf is being played.

Not long ago the only silence we kept was for the Fallen of the Great War and Second World War. That was after church on Remembrance Sunday. Recently, the silence for the Fallen has moved back to 11am on 11th November as it used to be before I was born. Then, during the hysteria over Diana in 1997 we kept a silence for her. Also, it seems that all sporting events are now required to begin with a silent tribute to whomsoever has died that week. We have had the silence for the terror attacks on New York, Madrid and now London. Finally, there was the three minutes silence for the very many victims of the Asian Tsunami at the start of the year.

There has certainly been silence inflation but the reason for it is not hard to find. Once upon a time, we as a nation, could join together in prayer. The words of the Lord's Prayer were known by all and we could say Amen in assent at the end of whichever words were spoken. Now, to be inclusive, we are silent. In theory, we could still be praying but we do it alone and not together. A corporate silence may still be a powerful thing, especially in today's world of mass distraction. But it still seems to me a poor substitute for a common voice.

Comments or questions? Post them at Bede's dedicated yahoo group.

The police are now telling us that the terrorists who bombed London were British and probably suicide bombers. However depressing this is, it is most interesting to note what the terrorists were not. They were not poor, they were not oppressed, they were not ill-educated. These young British lads were turned into mass killers by ideology. So please could we have an end to the benighted idiots claiming that the bombers were driven to act because of the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan or the leftie cause of the moment.

What makes ideologies so dangerous is that we have quite ditched them ourselves. Our politics is simply a question of who can best manage the country. Anyone fired by ideological Marxism, Christianity, atheism or whatever is derided as a nutter who should do more shopping. The only great cause is environmentalism which suffers from being all pain and no gain (ideological tree huggers are not preaching a new nirvana but a return to the the stone age). Thus when a really bad ideology turns up, we have nothing with which to counter it, no big ideas of our own. Just a vacuous celebrity cult and retail therapy.

If you want to find a cause of European militant Islam, then the best candidate is Bosnia (for which the European right can fairly be blamed). But if you want to fight militant Islam, I suggest you need more than multi-cultural out-reach programs or a sprinkling of knighthoods. Rather we need to robustly stand up for our traditions, celebrate them and refuse to let our politicians dismantle our liberties. Some hope.

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