Response to Dennis Jensen

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A Christian, Mr. Dennis Jensen has written a response paper to my critique of Lee Strobel's The Case for Faith.  It is available at (unknown current link) It is the third such attempt I know of, and, in my opinion, by far the best.  Though, as you might be able to guess, even if it is the best such paper, it is far from convincing -- in my biased opinion of course.  But he does deserve a reasoned response.

This response will be in two parts.  In the first part, I will first tackle a few major issues that come up repeatedly throughout his paper, or are closely related.  The second part, I will then comment on various specific arguments he presents.

As far as major issues, the first I will discuss is the free will argument.  Though Strobel's arguments usually have the free will argument implied as their underlying basis, they didn't often discuss it per se.  That is, if I recall correctly – it’s been a couple of years since I read it last.  At any rate, I didn't discuss free will enough in my paper, so, I will do so now.  I will start with an analogy that I will borrow from another skeptic, Chris Smith, called "God the Iron Worker".  I will paraphrase and expand on Smith's rendition.

First, imagine an engineer building a building.  He would likely do load calculations to determine the strength of materials needed to build the building.  Say he calculates that the main beams should have a tensile strength of 50,000 psi.  Then, he might use a materials reference book to pick out materials.  Or, if he has some material in mind but doesn't know the strength, he might run some experiments to see how strong the material is.

So, what if God was going to build a building?  How much tensile strength would the materials need to be?  50,000 psi?  .0001? 2 trillion?  For God, it would be purely arbitrary, decided by fiat.  For an omnipotent, omniscient being could never do anything out of necessity.  He sets the rules on how things hold together, and can set those rules to anything He wants.

So, say God decides the girders need to have 50,000 psi tensile strength.  He conjures up a beam and stress tests it.  Dammit, only 40,000 psi!  What’s wrong with this picture?  Of course He would know without testing it that it would fail.   He would know by his omniscience, of course, since he would have to know everything or not be omniscient.  But he would also know by his omnipotence; he had the full power and control over that which he created.  I make it a point to indicate that he would only need one or the other, omniscience or omnipotence, to know for certain what the strength of materials he creates.  Since he is (allegedly) both omniscient and omnipotent, that makes it all the more impossible for him to not know what would happen to the beam.

I realize that some readers may be objecting.  Readers may well realize that I am going to apply this to the idea of free will, but may assert that free will is different, human personality is far less predictable than a steel girder. If you know strong one piece of 316 grade stainless steel is, you pretty much know how strong any piece of 316 stainless steel is.  But if you put two different people in very similar situations, you will often get very different reactions.  The question becomes, what is the source of these differences?  Why would two different people react very differently?  How does this thing “free will” operate here?

It appears to me that Christians seem to think of an individual’s “free will” as “evolving”, though they probably would not use the term.  Here is what I mean.  Christians will usually accept that God gives people different skills, different personalities, different reasoning capabilities, etc.  And that God puts people into different environments, such as different eras in human history, different geographical and sociological settings, etc.  In other words, God sets up each individual’s starting point, so to speak.  And most Christians wouldn’t deny that these starting points given by God play a part in one’s decision making process. And yet, somehow, there is this element of “free will” at work here, beyond which that God put there in the starting point.

But how can this be? By what process does this thing “free will” operate under?  And where does it come from?  Either it comes from God and thereby operates per His design, or it creates itself!  Either it does what God made it do, or it evolves on its own! Is there any other option?  But given that most Christians assert that nothing can come from nothing, nothing can create itself, and nothing can evolve, the idea that “free will” self-evolves looks dead-in-the-water.  So, if this thing “free will” exists, it must be necessarily be created and operate under God’s design.

Furthermore, this is necessarily so, by definition of omniscience and omnipotence.  Like God’s steel girder, how could this thing “free will” do anything that isn’t pre-built into it by its design from God?  For example, let’s examine my writing this paper.  Why am I doing this?  I am writing this paper because it is consistent with my beliefs and my personality, and the environment I am in allows me to do so.  Did I create my own personality?  Did I create the environment I live in? No I did not.

Again, I realize that some readers will object, and claim that some of my environment and some of beliefs are by my choice, my “free will”.  Such readers may argue that I got the personality I have now, and the environment I have now based on previous choices—previous actions based on “free will”.  But how were those choices made?  By the environment of the time, and the choices made before then.  And before then, and before then, until you get back to where I was born--back to the starting point that Christians admit came from God:  my original birth environment and original birth personality and skills.  My current choices are either a deterministic progression from my starting point of my birth, or “free will” magically comes from nowhere, evolving by itself.

Next up, and related, Jensen makes frequent claims that God needs to see something actually happen--to “actualize”--in order to know what indeed does happen.  Jensen seems to be uncertain as to whether God is “timeless”, (non-temporal) or not -- some times he does refer to God as beyond time, yet other times puts temporal limits on God.  I think it clear that based on His alleged omniscience, He would have to know everything that would happen.  This is indeed what most modern theologians assert.

I remember reading in a Bryan Greene physics book about how time progresses at different rates in different parts of the universe due to relativity, the speed of the objects in motion.  He said that if we could have a view portal to other worlds throughout the universe, some would seem to be moving very fast, others very slow.  The point being simply that if God created the universe, He obviously couldn’t be tied to any specific time frame.  On a cosmic scale, earth time-frame isn’t any “better” or “worse” than other time frame.  God would have to be timeless, or non-temporal, which, again, is what most modern theologians assert.

The problem here is, a non-temporal deity is very contradictory to Biblegod that reacts to things as they happen.  For example, in Genesis, God regrets creating man and therefore sends the flood.  But then He regrets sending the flood!  How can an entity that knows everything that will ever happen possibly “regret” anything?

This happens to bring up an interesting related topic.  Not only would God know everything that ever happens in this world, He would know everything that would ever happen in every possible world!  The following is an imperfect analogy, but, it’s the best I can come up with.  Imagine that you had perfect photographic memory, and had memorized every single frame of a movie.  Every one.  I can ask you what happened on the 1,000th frame of the movie, and you could sketch it out perfectly, with every hair in place.

Now imagine that you can do that with every movie ever made. Awesome, powers, eh? Now imagine that you can do that with every movie that could ever be made!  Likewise, God would know in infinite and perfect detail of every possible universe that could ever exist.

Before I move on, I have had readers object to this, that I'm taking "omniscience" and "omnipotence" too literally.  As if God is only kind-of omniscient.  Actually, my position here is completely consistent with most modern theologians.  Gottfried Leibniz, a philosopher and mathematician of the 17th century proposed that God actualized the best possible world because he would know of all possible worlds and, as a benevolent deity, would actualize the best one.  A modern Christian apologist and theologian, Alvin Plantinga borrows from Leibniz.  Further, there is lots of scripture relating to God being without limits, with God all things are possible.

Now, I do understand that some theists will posit God as not being truly omniscient/omnipotent.  Perhaps His power is so beyond ours it appears to us that he is omniscient and omnipotent, but that He actually does hav some limits.  You then run into different problems such as, where does God's limits come from?  If limits exist that not even God can cross, doesn't this contradict some of the arguments that posit that the existence of God is required to set the rules and limits for everything else?

Such arguments for God having some kind of limits are invariably used ad-hoc. Such as, if a skeptic says something like, "an omnipotent entity can do ..", the theist tends to invent restrictions on what God could do in order to avoid the conclusions being drawn by the skeptic.  Arguing about such a fluid definition of an entity is pointless, the alleged deity becomes a moving target that can't be addressed as the definition changes at will.  Therefore, I can only make a rational discussion if I have some specific target to address.  God being omniscient and omnipotent is standard Christian theology accepted by most Christian theologians and therefore I will continue on with that understanding.

Therefore, I will return back to my photographic memory analogy, where I asked the reader to imagine that they had perfect photographic memory of every frame of every movie ever made, or even could be made.  If this was the case, would it matter much to you which movies actually were made vs. movies that merely could have been made?  What difference could it make to you?

Further, how could you ever have any emotional reaction to any of the movies?  Would you be thinking to yourself, “man, whenever I think about the frame where the Grinch sticks the tree up the chimney, man, that Grinch really pisses me off!”  Emotions are reactionary, which makes them contradictory to the idea of an omniscient deity.  So, if a God knows every detail of every second of existence everywhere in this universe and every possible universe, how could He be motivated to actualize any of them?  How could He be emotionally involved in any of them?

Now onto a related topic, that Jensen didn’t raise per se, but I think relevant.  What does it mean to “control” something?  I had a Christian say to me that the world is like God rolled a snowball down a mountain.  God set things in motion, but doesn’t know exactly what happens until it does--like throwing a snowball down a mountain.

True, if I throw a snowball down a mountain, I won’t know how big it will get and where it will go.  But that is because I’m a human and not omniscient.  But if God rolled a snowball down a hill, he would know how many molecules were in the snowball to begin with, where the ball would bounce, how many molecules will be picked up or dropped off at each bounce, etc.

When I pointed this out to the Christian who raised this analogy, he said that maybe I’m right, if God threw a snowball down a mountain, he would know exactly where the snowball would hit – yet he somehow maintained that God would not be “in control” of the snowball per se.  God wouldn’t be directly grabbing the snowball and moving it each step of the way down the mountain. God would merely be watching the snowball follow the course that he knew ahead of time it would take.  And that’s not the same thing as “control” per se--supposedly.

But where is the difference?  What is the dividing line between “controlling” something, and merely watching something do exactly that which you knew it would do based on your initial actions?  I say there is no difference.  Let’s say I dropped a hundred pound “snowball” –or block of ice--on someone’s head.  Could I tell the judge at my murder trial that once I let go of the block, it was “out of my hands” so to speak, and therefore not my fault?  Of course not.  Once I let go of the block, I would not be personally “controlling” its descent.  But the block did exactly what I knew it would do when I dropped it and therefore there I was indeed in control of it.

Nevertheless, there would indeed be things about this situation that would not be within my control.  I didn’t design the nature of water to create ice.  I didn’t create the nature of gravity to cause objects to fall to the earth.  I didn’t design the human skull to not withstand a hundred pound weight dropped on it.  But, it is not necessary for them to be of my creation for me to know what will happen. And if I do certain actions with known outcomes, the fact that parts of the environment are outside of my control doesn’t mean I’m not responsible or not “in control” of that which I set into motion knowing what would happen.

So, now what if God dropped a hundred pound block on someone’s head?  Well, not only would He be “in control” because He took an action with a known outcome – but He would also be “in control” because He did design the nature of water to create ice, the nature of gravity to cause objects to fall to earth, and the nature of the human skull to not withstand such a force.  The point being, He wouldn't even need to be omniscient or omnipotent in order to be "in control."  How much more so would God be in control if he is both omniscient and omnipotent?

Again, I imagine some readers objecting.  God might be “in control” if he dropped a block on someone’s head, or just rolled a snowball down a hill, but surely the universe is far more complicated, no?  Maybe it is, but, where is there any fundamental difference between the two?  If God creates the universe, with a specific design that will result in all the specific events that happen in the universe, how is He not in control?  He is fully in control both by his omniscience and by his omnipotence.  He both knows what will happen, and creates everything such that it will happen that way.  Where is there any room for a “free will” that is outside of the control of an omnipotent, omniscient being?

Another significant issue frequently raised by Jensen is the issue of historical evidence.  Although such issues did arise a small amount in The Case for Faith, for the most part, those issues are outside of the scope of that book and covered in Strobel’s other books in the series, The Case for Christ and The Case for the Real Jesus.  And of course there are many other Christian apologists that allege great historical evidence, such as Josh McDowell, NT Write, FF Bruce, etc.  I fully concede to not being any historical expert, but, I’ve done a fair amount of reading on the issues from my layman’s perspective.  And to the best as I have determined, the alleged historical evidence is pure hogwash.  Total, complete utter garbage.  I have written a response to Strobel’s The Case for the Real Jesus for some insights on this.

(Note:  My current edition of that paper uses some invectives and expletives.  I will be working on an update that is more restrained.)  But, if you are not interested in my paper on this subject, then, by all means, check out some real experts in the historical field.  Check out Robert Price, Bart Ehrman, and Richard Carrier for starters.  Of course that the fact that these writers are on “my side” doesn’t make them right.  However, to the best of my ability from a layman, I believe these writers are far more accurate than the apologists.  That is of course an exercise for the reader to decide for themselves.  Here’s a hint:  There is not one solid shred of evidence that Jesus even existed.  There is some circumstantial evidence that may or may not be deemed good enough to accept.  But there is not one single contemporary reference to the life of Jesus.  Zero.  None.  Nada.  Zilch.  Nothing.

Okay, the subjects above responds to the majority of the points Jensen raises in his paper.  A lot of the remaining material can be summed up as “personal opinion”.  Of course that is also true of my own paper.  It is my personal opinion that the idea of a deity sacrificing himself to himself to change his own rules is absurd and not worthy of serious consideration.  But ultimately, this, like many philosophical questions, cannot be proved.  If Jensen thinks that is a rational idea, I cannot prove him wrong.

Though as noted, I’ve responded above to the most significant issues that run through Jensen’s paper, I will now move on to some of Jensen’s specific points:

He gives the best skeptical responses he has to the answers he receives. We have no good reason to think that Strobel was not speaking as an honest skeptic attempting his hardest to find inconsistencies and to press home critical conclusions.

Given that every skeptic I’ve talked to who had read the book agrees with me that Strobel’s skeptical challenges were inadequate, I think it reasonable to conclude he did not adequately present the skeptical position.  Given he is claiming to present our side, I think we are the better judge of whether he did so or not.

We who can reason, unlike the trapped bear in Kreeft's illustration, should recognize that we have no more or less reason to think that a good God has good reason for allowing this suffering; there may be "no reason to assume that there is a greater good to come from injustice" but likewise there is no reason to assume that it will not.

I’ll tell you what.  I’ll come over to your house, beat the crap outa you, kill the rest of your family, steal all of your belongings, etc.  Then, I’ll say, hey, you can’t prove it won’t be good for you, so, why are you assuming it is bad?  By what basis can you predict the future and know that you won’t be grateful for my actions sometime in the future?  Would you buy this? Don’t give me this crap, Jensen.

...he only concludes that the argument from evil has not demonstrated or given evidence against the possibility that God intends and will achieve a greater good.

One wonders exactly what WOULD be evidence against such to Jensen?  Again, let me come over to your house and beat the crap outa you and see if you don’t find that as evidence against my having good intentions.

If God's intelligence to us is like our intelligence compared to a snail's, we really shouldn't expect to know what God's reason is for allowing evil. We have no way of knowing that this is not the case. We can't even say that it is probably not the case.

I’ve already answered this directly in my original paper.  If this is the case, then God should not be surprised that I am like the snail and don’t understand.  If God didn’t give me enough intelligence to understand, whose fault is that?

The most basic biblical theodicy is found in the first couple of chapters of the book of Job. God allows undeserved suffering because God needs to know if we will hold fast to God or turn against God in the face of suffering.

Read Job again.  God specifically says he got talked into it by Satan.  And he was proving Job’s steadfastness to Satan, not to himself.  God says, “You have incited me to ruin Job for no reason”.  GOD HIMSELF says there was no reason for it, other than he got talked into it by Satan.  Explain this to me:  if even GOD can get talked into doing wrong things by Satan, where does he have the moral right to judge us?  Satan talks God into allowing the ruining of Job, and that’s just all fine and good.  But if Adam and Eve get talked into eating an apple, God doesn’t just punish them, but everybody who ever lives thereafter.  You don’t notice a slight problem with this?  P.S.  I know your book of voodoo better than you do.  Better get used to it or go do some more reading.

"If there is a God and it is not inconceivable that this God has good reason for allowing this suffering, how will I respond to this God?"

What if there is an invisible alligator in your pants?  What are you going to do when it bites your dick off?  Sure, I’m being sarcastic, but there’s a point here:  we simply don’t have the time to play “what if” to every possible “if”.  If something drastically different than I expect happens, well, shit happens.  That’s life.

For something less absurd than the invisible alligator, let’s play “what if” about Allah.  What if Allah is the “one true God”?  Now, I know that Jensen’s position is that Allah is the same God as his, its just that some people have a better understanding of Him than others do.  Not everybody agrees with this, but even if so, it is still not a given that Allah would find a Christian’s beliefs acceptable. Jensen could assert he believes Allah would accept his beliefs, but he cannot prove it is true.  So what if Allah is the One True God and does NOT find Christian beliefs acceptable?  To rephrase Jensen’s own question, “how would you respond to this Allah?” I gather he would assert that he would tell Allah he made the best decisions he could at the time.  And that is the same answer I would give his God if the situation ever arises.  If I ever meet Jensen’s God, I will simply say I made the best decisions I could at the time.  My answer is the same as his answer.  Any further speculation than this is just like speculating on invisible alligators biting your dick off.

For God to simply make me good could never make me good in quite the same way.

Why not?  Isn’t God omnipotent?  Why do theists always presume to say what their allegedly omnipotent God can and cannot do?  Would you not be exactly the same as you are now, if God created you five minutes ago, complete with the memories of the things you think you did?  What would the difference be?

Also, as Paul and Theresa have pointed out (above) our greatest suffering is in the long run more like the child's pin prick.

This is an assertion without evidence.  You (and Paul and Theresa) claim that, but where is your evidence?  You have none.  Secondly, again, let me come over to your house, beat the crap outa you, kill your family, etc., and see if you find it to be akin to a pin prick.

But if God will provide the compensation for this suffering, that would make it almost as though it had never happened.

You’ll excuse me if I find it rather disgusting that you, while sitting in you air-conditioned house typing on your computer are alleging how important somebody else’s suffering is.  I’m sure somebody dying in the street in Iraq or starving in Africa, or dying of AIDS, etc., appreciates how important you find his suffering to be.  Jesus Fucking H. Christ, you Christians are such pricks.  Why is it so important for them to suffer?

Here our previous stated theodicies will offer an obvious answer. The Christian, like anyone else with any moral awareness, would (or should) certainly seek to save the child's life. One reason for such suffering is to test us to see whether we will respond and seek to stop the suffering. But if there is no one to respond, the mother is tested as well as to her response to God.

This is just wanting to “have your cake and eat it too.”  If the child dies, it is good; if the child is saved it is good.  Nothing is ever “bad” in his reasoning.  No matter what happens, “God wins” in his the-idiocy.  With this being the case, it is fundamentally impossible for me to ever give him something that would count against his belief in God.  Everything, no matter what it is, counts as evidence for God.  Jensen said that he didn’t find my article convincing.  Little wonder, given that he has set up his reasoning so that nothing ever could be a convincing against his beliefs. He may buy this program, but I don’t.

And the aborted child or the child who has lived too short of a life to face that choice will be given that choice again, either in this world or some other world or environment sufficiently like our own.

Evidence? Any evidence?  No?  I didn’t think so.  By the way, not even the Bible says this.  Nowhere.  This is pure ad-hoc.

Why? Why does Doland think this is ad-hoc?

What a coincidence, the very next thing you say is where you challenge me on something else being ad-hoc.  The definition of ad-hoc is “shit you made up because some other shit is so stupid that you gotta make something up to try to hide it”.  Obviously the line of argument fits the definition.  Obviously.

My own view is that we will not be free in heaven. I think Kreeft takes a similar view though he disdains to say we will actually lack freedom.

Heaven = good, right?  If no freedom in heaven, that means freedom not good.  Once again, Jensen is being purely ad-hoc.  He needs to have a reason for “free will” on this earth, yet realizes that is inconsistent with what he alleged heaven to be, so must assert that God has this bizarre need to have one environment that is “good” in one way (here) and then another environment (heaven) that is “good” in a completely different way.  But God could have no such need, for God is ALL POWERFUL, and can never do anything out of necessity.

In heaven I won't care that I am unable to choose against God or to do evil, I've already made that decision. Why do I need to make it again?

You ever make a wrong choice?  Ever change your mind?

But this only shows that with enough knowledge one can still choose against God. But would this still be the case for most people (or angels)?

Why not?  Why is God so limited?

God does call us, draw us, to seek God. God wants to know if we will let this spark of a desire grow.

And yet He fails.  He’s omniscient, omnipotent, and yet fails.  Hmmm….

Darwin's views can very easily accommodate a very literal understanding of the scripture. In the last half century and more the evidence for the big bang has increased the evidential status of theism. With the last decade or so, the fine tuning argument, the finding that many of the laws and constants of nature cannot deviate from their present values by barely the slightest variation, has provided very strong evidence for theism. Now, some of the arguments for multiple universes are at least chipping away at that once overpowering argument. And these are just a few examples

Why would the scriptures ever need “accommodation”?  If God used theistic-evolution or progressive creationism to create man, why didn’t he say so in the Bible?  If the Bible would have said something like that, something that could be later verified as true but could not have been guessed by its authors, that would be some evidence for its authenticity.  As is, there is nothing in the Bible that doesn’t look like it was written by men 2,000+ years ago.  Nothing looks divine at all.

Further, if the cosmological (Big Bang) argument, fine tuning argument, or design arguments have any merit, the best they could support is that some unknown god created the universe.  It’s a far cry to get to Biblegod from those arguments.  But I don’t think those arguments work at all anyway.  Isn’t God infinitely “finely tuned”, complex, and have no origin?  How is it that God is exempt from the very rules that you claim indicate a God is necessary?

The universe is “really good” if you define “good” as large, complex, aesthetically pleasing, habitable to life in at least some regions, etc.  Basically, the cosmological/fine-tuning/design arguments say the following:  “something ‘really good’ (the universe) can’t exist by itself, but something PERFECT (God) can.”  It’s nonsense.  If something “really good” couldn’t exist by itself, then something perfect certainly couldn’t either.

Since people throughout history have by and large had access to the same scientific and religious evidence (the relatively recent increase in scientific knowledge makes up an extremely tiny portion of human history) it seems more likely that the dominance of theistic belief throughout history gives at least good credence to Kreeft's claim

This is just a non-sequitur.  Why would religious beliefs be less prone to be in error than scientific beliefs?  When a solar eclipse comes, you wouldn’t go out and bang on pots and pans to try to scare away the demon from eating the sun, right?  People thousands of years ago did, and they thought at the time it was a reasonable theory.  Indeed, it might have been, given what knowledge they had available to them.  But it didn’t make it true.

If some giant hand (or force, or mass of particles, etc.) were able to reach out (or intercept) and stop the earth rotation (and also stop each subatomic particle) so that no sense of breaking would occur, wouldn't that be at least in principle like Doland's earlier example of someone catching an apple before it hits the ground?

The apple was actually Craig’s example, not mine.  Anyway, this opens up a proverbial can of worms that I did not address.  Say it were to happen that the earth stopped spinning for some amount of period, without any ill effects.  Could we really know it was “supernatural”?  Perhaps it was something naturalistic, just something completely unknown that happened.  What exactly is the dividing line between natural and supernatural?  In my view, the dividing line is whether or not the source of the phenomena is of our physical cosmos or not.  But, if something like that ever happened, we may never be able to determine for certain whether the earth stopped because of something natural or supernatural.

This gets us back to the question of how much evidence is good enough evidence

That is a good question.  I assert there is no exact answer.  There is no formula that says “X amount of evidence is required to believe Y proposition.”  It is perfectly reasonable that for X amount of evidence, some people would accept Y proposition and some wouldn’t.  This is among the reasons why a deity choosing as his method of salvation to pick people based on whether they accept a certain proposition is nutty.  Say I proclaimed that George Washington was never president of the United States.  Some might suspect I was strange, or ill-informed, or a conspiracy theorist.  But that in itself wouldn’t be considered a crime.  Then when you get to something substantially more speculative, like a deity raising someone from the dead, it is clearly obvious that different people would expect different amount of evidence.  It’s simply not a crime.

Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? We agree that they do though I suspect Doland would require much more extraordinary evidence than I would.

Is this a crime?  I’m quite happy to acknowledge that I would clearly want more evidence than Jensen.  So?

Now suppose we have only the testimonial evidence: someone tells us they saw someone alive after their public execution who predicted they would rise from the dead. This certainly does not have the same power as a direct experience for oneself but I think it should be admitted to have some force.

Some force, yeah, I could accept that.  But, how much force?  Enough that it is a crime to not to not find it sufficient force to support the belief? Particularly when the testimonial evidence is highly suspect? (I won’t go into why right here, read Price, Ehrman, Carrier.)  I accept it is “some force”, just very, very, very little force.  About as much force as Jensen finds of the affidavits in the beginning of the Book of Mormon of the people swearing to its truthfulness.

In the evidence for Jesus' resurrection, we have good reason to believe that about five hundred people saw Jesus alive after his resurrection

We have ONE SENTENCE from Paul about this.  This really happened and it escaped the notice of the Gospel authors?  Please.  This is NOT good reason!

Here one shouldn't consider one explanation as necessarily better than the other unless the evidence better supports one view over the other.

As I explained in my paper, the term “evidence” only has meaning for naturalistic explanations!  Once you start talking about evidence, you cannot be talking about the supernatural.  And if you are talking about the supernatural, you cannot be talking about evidence.  We only have naturalistic senses.  And if a supernatural agent could alter reality, he/she/it could cover up this alteration PERFECTLY.

This is because experience has shown us that such phenomena do usually have natural, explanations (at least more proximate explanations).

Correct.  Except not “usually”, the correct answer is “always” as far as has been able to be determined.  Explain to me this:  if God exists, has always existed, then presumably God has done countless miracles throughout time in all lands and for all peoples.  And yet, the only miracles that Jensen accepts as having been validated are presumably the ones in the Bible.  (Apologies if I’m incorrect on this assumption.)  Were there any miracles in China over the last several thousand years?  Why aren’t they documented?  How about in Russia?  How about in the United States over the last few hundred years?  None?  Really?  Very strange, no?

                But until then the supernatural explanation should be accepted because it is the more justified belief.

Name one supernatural belief that has withstood the test of time – excluding the Bible.  Name one.  Just fucking one, okay?  No?  None?  Amazing isn’t it?  Saying that the “supernatural is the more justified belief” has never been shown to be a true statement.  Never.  Period.  So, what we actually have here is no justified belief in the supernatural. Jensen and other Christians simply manufacture an alleged justification because they have to, or give up their voodoo.

Consider two possible scenarios: One, suppose the object began levitating for no known reason. Your book just rose off your desk and it's floating in midair. Two, you are talking with a friend who tells you, "look at what I can do," and some object begins to float in the air. In one, we should think the phenomenon has a natural explanation though we keep in mind that it is always possible it has a supernatural or a personalistic supernatural explanation.

Notice that Jensen has to provide a hypothetical, because, outside of the Bible which we are debating, he has no actual.  He has only hypotheticals.  I, on the other hand, have countless cases of people thinking they had a genuine miracle on their hand only to find out otherwise.  I have actuals, he has hypotheticals.  I have countless actuals, he has zero actuals.  Notice a trend here?

                But uniform natural law is assumed under the biblical world view.

Except of course when there is a miracle.  In other words, nature is uniform except when its not.  Logic only a theist could love…

               Does any honest (and sane) scientist really believe that we will someday know everything?

Straw-man alert!  No scientist needs to know everything to understand what does and does not fall within the reach of science.

Couldn't any chemistry student claim their experiment failed because God (or the devil) added some extra chemical to the brew? Maybe under some very unusual form of theism, perhaps, but that isn't something the Jewish and Christian God would do.

How do you know?  Because the Bible says so?  First off, it doesn’t.  It says exactly the opposite actually.  This if from a Jewish site explaining why they reject Christianity:

http://www.aish.com/spirituality/philosophy/Why_Dont_Jews_Believe_In_Jesus$.asp

Judaism, unique among all of the world's major religions, does not rely on "claims of miracles" as the basis for its religion. In fact, the Bible says that God sometimes grants the power of "miracles" to charlatans, in order to test Jewish loyalty to the Torah (Deut. 13:1-4).

Note:  That article is a good article for debunking many other Christian claims.  Please consider reading it in full.

So we see that Jensen’s claim that utilizing false miracles deceptively being contrary to the Judeo-Christian God is factually in error.  But, for sake of argument, let us suppose that the Bible actually has something along the lines of:  “the only exceptions to natural law are in this book.” Even if this were the case, you still can’t use that as proof of anything.  For that very claim could be a satanic lie to keep you from looking for his dirty deeds.  Once you start allowing supernatural into the mix, you have NO justification for ever taking it out of the mix.  None.

               The Christian God doesn't normally interfere in nature or allow Satan to control the normal course of nature.

Unless Satan talks God into allowing it.  Or when God decides to test your loyalty to the Torah. Thanks God, you’re a pal!

What an honest scientific investigation has no right to do is to say that no matter how much we fail to find a naturalistic explanation we can never consider a theistic supernatural explanation.

Because “science” and “supernatural” are fundamentally incompatible.

Just because all of our accepted investigations of nature have brought up naturalistic explanations is no reason to think there can be no exceptions.

Translation:  “Just because the supernatural has failed each and every fucking time, doesn’t mean anything.”  It has been said that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  This is what Jensen proposes.

                How can science be sure of learning anything new if all possible explanations are not considered?

How can you be sure there isn’t an undetectable alligator in your pants if you’ve never considered the possibility?  It’s a true statement that there will be things I will never know because I never even considered some possibilities.  That’s a limitation of being human.  Tough shit for humanity.

Only if the "set up" should appear to be beyond human capacity, should the defendant conclude that a greater than human intelligence/power really did frame him

As I said, if you accept that the supernatural could be involved when the “set up” appears beyond the natural, then you have no justification to not accept it when it does appear natural, for any entity capable of doing supernatural events would be equally capable of making it look like not supernatural event took place!

                The court's justified belief is that he is guilty, even though this belief is in fact false given this scenario.

Hey, cool!  Finally, something we can both agree to!!!  I 100% agree that I cannot prove the supernatural does not exist.  It could exist, and if it does, then there will be things I disbelieve incorrectly.  This also falls under the category of “shit happens.”  It is the nature of being human that I will not be correct every time.  Tough shit for being human.

What I am saying is, I only have any hope of being right if I assume the supernatural doesn’t exist--for the natural is all that I, as a naturalistic being in a naturalistic universe, can deal with.  So, if my assumptions about the supernatural are incorrect and the Resurrection really did happen, I’m shit-outa-luck.  How is this a crime?

For example, Craig at one time used Hume's example of Queen Elizabeth. If she died and then were seen walking around London, we would not assume a miracle, Craig says. Without the context of a prophecy that this would happen or a claim by the queen that it would happen by a particular means (e.g., God's power) we have no way of knowing the cause.

Again, Jensen makes the same mistake over and over again.  Even if we have a “context”, an alleged prophecy, that doesn’t make it any more likely to be true.  God if he exists is free to do miracles without any prophesy.  God has no requirement to explain Himself.  If God wanted to raise Queen Elizabeth from the dead, who are you to demand a reason for it?  Who are you to disbelieve it just because God didn’t write you a telegram telling you His reasons?

Further, even if we do have an alleged prophesy, so what?  That just makes it all the more likely that a “true believer” will fabricate something to match the prophesy.  See my article on The Case for the Real Jesus for my discussion on evidence for intentional fabrication in the Gospel stories to fit alleged prophesies.

                 The belief has always been that demons can cause disease though not all diseases are necessarily caused by demonic powers.

So, by this, one would conclude that at least some disease is caused by demonic powers.  And, by the way, this violates your claim that Satan isn’t often allowed to do supernatural events.  What percentage of disease is caused by demons would you say?  0.001%? 1%?  5%? 10%? 50%?  You have no fucking idea now do you?  None.  Not the slightest fucking clue.  But yet you would indeed scoff if someone claimed to be cured of disease via exorcism.  Doesn’t this tell you that you don’t really believe this nonsense?

Today Christians accept that disease is caused by microorganisms or other physical mechanisms but they would say that if a demon causes a disease it will use such a mechanism.

Does the Bible say this?  By golly, no, it doesn’t.  Can you say ad-hoc?  I knew you could….

                And of course, in Jesus' time it was not known that microorganisms had part in the process.

And again, had Jesus actually told people that, and it was documented in the Bible, that might be some evidence for your side. The fact that your Biblegod doesn’t display any better knowledge of anything beyond that would be known by the people of the time who wrote the Bible, one would think, would be quite sufficient evidence in itself to discount is alleged divine origin.

                 And we certainly have no scientific evidence that contradicts this claim.

Because there could be no scientific evidence that could contradict the claim, nor confirm it.

                 ...and when the documents have good support for their historicity (using normal scholarly standards for determining historicity)

Bullshit.  By normal scholarly standards for determining history, the Gospels fail miserably.  Again refer to my other articles or to my other sources.

Not if science tells us that this being is simple in nature and that God's choice to create follows from God's nature or from God's free choice    alone

Doesn’t your claim here of something “complex” (the universe) coming from something “simple” (God???) violate your claims for needing a god in the first place?  Is the entire reason for needing a god is an alleged need for a source for complexity?  If complexity can come from simplicity, what need do you have for a god?

Besides, only a theist could posit an omnipotent, omniscient entity as “simple”.  By that reasoning, I could posit the universe as “simple”.  If string theory is right, the universe is basically made of one thing, strings -- just a whole lot of them.  If string theory is wrong, then it is made up of a handful of elemental particles.  Again, just a whole lot of them.  Really simple actually.  The fact that these few building blocks can form nearly infinite forms is no more “complex” than a god that can do an infinite number of things springing forth from his “simplicity.”

If the theist can play word games and define his deity as "simple," so can I and define the universe simple too.  All we have done is prove that we can play word games with “simple” and “complex”.  Woo-hoo!  This is really useful… Pick a new game Jensen; I’m kind-of bored with this one.

                Thus someone who has merely a "sense of certainty" type of experience is justified in so believing.

The 9/11 hijackers had a “sense of certainty” that they would be rewarded by Allah. Sure, I know that using 9/11 is a cliché, but, it still happens to be a valid one.  The point is “sense of certainty” by itself, is meaningless.  People have “sense of certainty” about all sorts of things.  Just ask any alleged alien abductee.

A friend recounted how she was once at a point of extreme depression and about to cut her wrists. She told God that she had to know if it was real or not. She said she then sensed a presence in her room, nothing more nor less.

And this doesn’t just scream psychosomatic to you?  Part of her didn’t want to live, part of her did.  So the part of her that did invented a reason to live.  At least, that is very reasonable conclusion.  Can I prove it absolutely?  No.  I can’t prove I don’t have an invisible alligator in my pants either.  I go by reasonable conclusions.

                 But another point is that if someone tells me that they have an experience like this, this should count as evidence for their claim.

Absolutely not any more than the 9/11 hijackers claims.  Yeah, I’m pulling out 9/11 again, but, it is completely correct.  Your claims might be less ludicrous than theirs, but merely being "less ludicrous" doesn't count as evidence of factuality.

                 I asked him if he ever simply asked God for the truth. He said he did but he didn't like the kind of new information that started coming his way.

You can’t do any better than lame anecdotes?  Go to an alien abductee web site, and you’ll get all the anecdotes you could stand.  Same for Elvis-is-alive sites, etc.  You’ve got to do better than anecdotes.  Too bad you can’t do any better, for you have nothing else to offer.

                 I do think the biblical view is pretty clear that anyone who knows that Christianity is true and rejects it is lost

I always hear Christian anecdotes of people that allegedly know Christianity is true, but don’t want to follow Christ anyway.  I’ve never met anybody like this.  And let me state this for the record:  in my view, anybody that thinks Christianity is true should be a Christian!  Who could possibly say, “Eternal bliss?  Nah, no thanks.”?

We cannot exclude the possibility that one may seek and never discover Christianity to be true in this life and yet they will not be lost. They will find it is true in the next life.

You can claim that the Bible doesn’t specifically rule this out.  Maybe true, but, there are an infinite number of things the Bible doesn’t specifically rule out.  The point is, does it specifically state so?  No.  Besides, if your speculation is correct, you’ve obviated any need for this life.  I believe most theologians would agree with me on this point, by they way.  Most theologians say you get this life to decide what path to take and that’s that.  That’s the whole purpose of this life.  Your speculation is required simply because you realize that can’t be fair, so you have to speculate an “out”.

But lack of a good naturalistic explanation is good reason to conclude a supernatural explanation if the supernatural explanation is simpler and more plausible.

No.

It is simply an unwarranted prejudice to say that, given equal evidence or equal lack of evidence, that one explanation must be assumed rather than another.

No.

The complexity of any so far imaginable earliest and simplest life form is so very complex that it is difficult to conceive of any possible naturalistic explanation for life.

Origin of life experiments, though not conclusive nor complete, are far more fruitful than Jensen and other Creationists would have you believe. Refer to my Case for a Creator paper, and my reference material.

True science must never be satisfied with accepted explanations; it will continue to investigate and question even when given theories and laws appear to be virtually unquestionable.

Completely correct. But this about as revolutionary as 2+2=4.  Nobody doubts this.

The fact that we have in the past generally found naturalistic explanations for whatever phenomena we have investigated has no bearing on this argument whatsoever.

Translation:  “please ignore the fact that naturalism has won each and every single contest.”

What is the better explanation now: a naturalism that has no way of explaining and cannot come close to conceiving a possible explanation for life without positing multiple universes...

Straw-man alert!  Nobody asserts that multiple universes are a must to explain life.  (Okay, maybe some people do, but it is by no means a scientific consensus.)  It could turn out to make life more likely.  But, scientists that posit multiple universes do so when the equations predict it.  Look up Hawkings’ work on brane theory, for example. Scientists don’t pull it out of their ass going, “gee, I gotta come up with some way to get around having god in here…”

"In other words, even in this toy model that assumes a deliberately inflated rate of RNA production, the probability that a coupled translation-replication [a state necessary prior to evolvable life] emerges by chance in a single O-region [an observable universe, a volume limited to only all that we can observe, also called a Hubble Volume] is P < 10-1018 [the probability is less than minus 101018, an unimaginably low probability].

Koonin must be a moron.  Not just because I say so.  But, you see, you have to have all the variables defined before you can do a probability equation.  I doubt he could possibly have all the variables defined, given that nobody has defined all the variables. Doing probability equations without all the variables defined falls under the old phrase, "lies, damned lies, and statistics".  In fact, there happens to be a paper entitled, "Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations" which is very appropriate for this discussion, and worth reading.

            It is difficult to imagine that a cell with fewer genes could survive to reproduce.

First off, this is called an “argument from incredulity”.  Jensen can’t imagine it, so it must be false.  Secondly, you ever hear of a fucking virus?  How about a prion?  You might not know about prions, do some googling on Mad Cow Disease and prions.  Entities far less complex than cells exist today, thus proving that not only does Jensen lack imagination, he also lacks elementary education.

And by the way, where in the Bible does it teach us about cells, bacteria, viruses, prions, etc.?  Nowhere, eh?  Funny how it works that way now isn’t it?

At any rate, the current theory is that very likely the first thing remotely resembling being “alive” was probably a very simple self-replicating molecule.  From there, natural selection took over.  Its first formation may well be pure random chance.  But there are some possible candidates that have been proposed that can be produced reasonably easily naturalistically.  It is true that we probably can never prove what indeed was the first such molecule, as the evidence is hopelessly lost.  But science can at least give us possibilities, that may someday reach probabilities.  “God diddit” never can.

… like the difficulty of having such a large number of animal phyla appear within a relatively few million years in the Cambrian explosion, or the sudden appearance of new species after mass extinctions, or the multiple simultaneous mutations required to change from a reptile to an avian lung, or the problems Behe points out concerning irreducible complexity, or the fact that we have no empirical evidence for macroevolution despite thousands of generations of mutated fruit flies, etc.

You need to read my article on The Case for a Creator, and my referenced material.  At any rate, the Cambrian explosion arguments are complete garbage.

There are evolutionists who have many different opinions about various issues in their study. For example, there are gradualists and there are others who accept punctuated equilibrium.

True, there are disputes about details.  There is no serious dispute about the basic fact of evolution however.  But Young-earth vs. old earth Creationism aren’t in the same ballpark. Regardless of whether gradualism or punctuated equilibrium is correct, the majority of what the other side believes isn’t falsified.  On the other hand, a great deal of what a young-earther believes is falsified by old-earth Creationism, and vise-versa.

Here I wouldn't be able to adequately respond without hearing Doland's argument that YEC presents a better case that the Bible teaches their view.

I’ll refer to an Answers-in-Genesis article for this:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i1/days.asp

I’ll also quote another article from Answers-In-Genesis, which criticizes theistic evolution and progressive creationism as allegedly violating Biblical concepts:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i3/questions.asp

Concept violated: Adam's sin brought death and decay, the basis of the Gospel

According to the evolutionist's (and progressive creationist's) understanding, fossils (which show death, disease and bloodshed) were formed before people appeared on earth. Doesn't that mean that you can't believe the Bible when it says that everything is in 'bondage to decay' because of Adam's sin (Romans 8)? In the evolutionary view, hasn't the 'bondage to decay' always been there? And if death and suffering did not arise with Adam's sin and the resulting curse, how can Jesus' suffering and physical death pay the penalty for sin and give us eternal life, as the Bible clearly says (e.g. 1 Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive")?

Concept violated: the goodness of God.

The Bible says 'God is good' and in Genesis 1:31 God described his just finished creation as 'very good'. How do you understand the goodness of God if He used evolution, 'nature red in tooth and claw', to 'create' everything?

Concept violated: the straightforward understanding of the Word of God

If the Genesis account does not mean what it plainly says, but must be 'interpreted' to fit an evolutionary world, how are we to understand the rest of the Bible? How are we to know that the historical accounts of Jesus' life, death and resurrection should not also be 'reinterpreted'? Indeed, can we know anything for sure if the Bible can be so flexible?

Concept violated: the creation is supposed to show the hand of God clearly

Dr Niles Eldredge, well-known evolutionist, said:   'Darwin . . . taught us that we can understand life's history in purely naturalistic terms, without recourse to the supernatural or divine.' [Niles Eldredge, "Time Frames - the Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibrium", 1986, Heinemann, London, p. 13.]  Is it not philosophically inconsistent to marry God (theism) with evolution (naturalism)? If God 'created' using evolution which makes Him unnecessary, how can God's 'eternal power and divine nature' be 'clearly seen' in creation, as Romans 1:20 says? Evolution has no purpose, no direction, no goal. The God of the Bible is all about purpose. How do you reconcile the purposelessness of evolution with the purposes of God? What does God have to do in an evolutionary world? Is not God an 'unnecessary hypothesis'?

Concept violated: the need of restoration for the creation

If God created over millions of years involving death, the existing earth is not ruined by sin, but is as it always has been - as God supposedly intended it to be. So why then should He want to destroy it and create a new heavens and earth (2 Peter 3 and other places)?

I trust this is sufficient for Jensen’s question.

Yet none of this mentions any cruel or tortuous executions. A sword to the neck can be very quick and in fact almost painless

True, I cannot think of a specific example of torture, per se.  At least of humans.  There is some specific cruelty ordered for animals, the hamstringing of horses.  Can you think of a valid reason for God to order cruelty to animals?  But to Jensen’s question, no, at least at the moment, I cannot find an example of literal torture ordered by God to humans.  But, whether one would call “cruel” an execution, even if done quickly and painlessly is a subject for philosophy.  If I killed your family, even if quickly and painlessly, would you not consider me “cruel”?

             With this it was not at all improper or unjust of God to harden their hearts so that they would fight the Israelites and perish.

Why not just make them disappear?  Hey, how about this:  why not come down and teach those nasty Canaanites what they are doing is wrong and lead them away from wickedness?

Geisler also points out that the Caananites could have fled before the conquest began, that most of the women and children would have fled before the actual fighting,

I also responded to this already in my article.  I’ll quote myself:

So "tough luck" for the remainder who didn't abandon their homes and run for their lives--including those forced to stay behind because of poor health or disability? Besides, these passages don't seem to indicate a shortage of women and children. In fact, in Numbers Moses was enraged that his men didn't kill the women and children and orders them to go back and finish the job!

Next up, is the discussion of possible rape:

The Law of Moses does not condone rape and so it would not condone it in this case either. Rape was punishable by death unless the victim was not married or betrothed

Hmmm.  Note that the Law also does not condone murder, and yet murder is directly ordered by God.  Jensen is making a common error, and that is, assuming that the Law applies equally to Jews and non-Jews.  This is clearly not the case. The Ten Commandments are laws for Jews only.  Non-Jews aren’t considered “really” people, and therefore the rules don’t apply.  This is quite obvious when you consider how much God orders the Jews to break the law against murder.  So, with this in mind, you cannot say anything about what the Jews might have done to female captives as far as being allowed or disallowed by the Law of Moses as it is inapplicable.

            No, we have seen that this only indicates that they were taken as wives or concubines.

Oh, c’mon! You’re not really this naïve now are you?  What choice as to whether or not to be a concubine would be available to a woman whose family has been killed and she has been taken captive?  Do you REALLY think she has much of a choice?  Really?  You do?  Go fuck yourself.

            But the examples raised only show God's justice upon a people that were so evil that God had determined to completely exterminate them.

There is a Bible quote that I should have used.  I don’t remember it exactly, need to look it up.  But, if I’m not mistaken, one of the towns God ordered destroyed, their only “crime” was denying passage of the Jews through their land.  No wickedness, no other crime.  They just had the nerve to say “fuck you” to the Jews, and God orders them killed.  Great moral God you got there, Jensen.

             But it was primarily because of the wickedness of the people that they were to be exterminated, not because their evil was contagious.

You disagree with God?  He didn’t lay out how important each specific factor was, but God did indeed mention that the Jews would learn the wicked ways as one reason for the extermination.

If God didn't really care about judging them for their sin, they could have been moved to some more inaccessible part of the world. But of course then they would just contaminate their new neighbors.

So now you're saying their evil was contagious.  The previous paragraph you said it wasn't contagious.  Which the fuck is it?  At any rate, God could just make them disappear.  Or, He could teach them not to be so wicked.

But why should innocent children be killed? Geisler says the children could not hope to grow up any less evil in a society as corrupt as this. He also claims that such children would immediately go to heaven.

Of note, you disagree with Geisler, and say that the children would still have to choose later--not get a “free pass” into heaven.  But you can’t really win either way. Geisler’s view obviates any need for this life; but so does Jensen’s.  Why not have everybody decide in some other world?

The stillborn child who is never given that chance must be given it in another life, either by returning to this world or to another with the same opportunity of choice.

Funny that Geisler doesn’t know this is what happens.  Maybe he was absent that day in theology class?  Be sure to correct Geisler so that he doesn’t make this error in the future, okay?

            Because of the wickedness of a tribe or nation, God has decided to judge them by killing all the guilty adults as well as the innocent children.

And you call this “just”?  Jesus Fucking H. Christ, what a crock of shit.

             Would Doland honestly try to argue that killing animals for food is wrong?

As you may know from my article, I would argue that it is virtually always not necessary, and therefore indeed usually wrong.  But, I don’t deny that there can be situations where it is the best option.  If I was starving, and had no food options but to kill an animal, I would do so.  But, Jensen’s argument, summarized is, “its okay to kill an animal for food, therefore it is okay to kill an animal for any old reason.”  Non-sequitur.

             Why should this be considered a better option than using a nation to destroy another

Because, among other reasons, it’s allegedly a crime to kill other people. You have heard of the Ten Commandments, right?  You yourself said that the children were innocent, and should by any rational thought be protected by the Ten Commandments.  Until, of course, you realize that Biblegod is a war-god invented to allow the Jews to justify their own wars and therefore never made their God’s rules apply to any non Jew.  Then, of course, it all makes perfect sense.

             So the cities and nations in the above passage are the ones who are from outside of Canaan who initiate aggression against Israel.

First off, it doesn’t say that they did initiate aggression, at least not in all cases.  Even if they did, so what?  I don’t believe Iraq instigated our war against them, but, if we assume they did for sake of argument, that doesn’t (or shouldn’t) mean the US has the right to exterminate everybody in Iraq.  I can see our illustrious president buys into this program, but I don’t.  Doesn’t this prove how the Bible is written by barbarians for barbarians?  This isn’t how a civilized society behaves.  That is unless the idiots of the population elect a fascist theocrat.  Goddamn, I hate theism.

Jensen quotes a Bible passage teaching compassion to slaves by slave-owners:

How many times did God tell the people, "Be compassionate to your slaves, remember that you were once slaves in Egypt" or "Do not mistreat the foreigners in your midst, remember that you were once foreigners in Egypt"?

But the Bible also says this:

"When a man strikes his slave, male or female, and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his property." [Exodus 21:20-21]

Jensen is just doing selective quoting.  Truthfully, so am I.  I’m selecting quotes that support my position as does Jensen.  But, like it or not, it is fair for me to do so.  For it matters not to me if some of the Bible is sensible.  It only matters to me that some of it is not sensible.  For Jensen, the onus is on him to make it all look sensible, but he can only do so via selective quoting.  I legitimately get to selective quote, and Jensen doesn’t.  Tough shit for Jensen.

            We are not exactly identical with Adam but we have part of him, part of the part of him that committed evil, passed on to us.

And who came up with this plan?  Who decided that part of Adam’s evil gets passed on to us?  I’ll give you two guesses:  it’s either a) God; or b) God.  Are you stumped on that one? You know, if I was designing human beings, and I didn’t like evil, I think I’d probably not pass evil on down to every human being.  Why didn’t God think of that?  Hmmm…

            And even without Adam's first sin, there would still have been undeserved suffering in the world.

Why?  An omnipotent, omniscient God isn’t too handy with building things properly?

            This seems very clear in the book of Job.

BECAUSE OF GOD HIMSELF, YOU DUMBFUCK.  I’m sorry, but, this stupid shit by Jensen is just pissing me off. 

            I doubt that maturity really has anything to do with it other than to provide an initial ability to freely choose

Why is that?  Isn’t any other significant decision you make in your life impacted by your maturity?  Isn’t someone’s decision to get married at 30 at least usually a sounder decision than one made at age 13?  Sure, I know that some marriages at age 13 last a lifetime, but I’m talking on the average.  Obviously maturity plays a part in life-changing decisions. Obviously.  Can Jensen’s arguments get any fucking stupider…?

Imagine that Mars were a lush uninhabited paradise that we could colonize. Would it devalue life on earth if we all wanted to go to Mars and did so?

I had to ask, didn’t I?  I guess they can get even fucking stupider…  Life on a lush, uninhabited, paradisiacal Mars, while perhaps involving some adjustment, would still be fundamentally akin to living on earth.  There would still be death and disease.  There would still be pain and injustice.  Further, the process of living would still be roughly the same.  You’d still go to bed at night to sleep.  Gut up in the morning to shit, shower and shave.  Eat breakfast if that is your habit.  Go to work.  Have lunch.  Come home.  Eat dinner.  Maybe watch TV.  Maybe have sex with the old lady.  What of any of these things would you be doing in heaven?  None of them.  We are talking about a fundamentally different plane of existence.

But we cannot create sentient androids. We could imagine ourselves being able to create androids but we cannot create sentience. What arrangement of matter could ever produce sentience or awareness?

The same kind of arrangement of matter that is in our brain, presumably.  This article on the dependence of the mind on the physical brain may be of interest:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/immortality.html

No, he said that the historicity of the Bible attests to the fact that the claimed miracles occurred and the attested miracles give evidence that this book is the Word of God. That is not circular.

And where is the evidence of the Bible’s alleged historicity?  The Bible.  That IS circular. Yeah, yeah, I know you quoted a number of sources in order to allegedly support historicity of the Bible.  But do you have any evidence that they had any evidence besides the Bible?  No, you don’t.  Further, while there are some secular references to Jesus within a century of Jesus alleged life, these secular references do not validate any miracles.  For example, even if Josephus’ Testamonium is genuine, at least partially, it doesn’t attest to any of the miracles in the Bible.  So, for any of the claimed miracles, all you have to attest to its alleged historicity is the Bible itself—circular.

            We are simply showing that no inconsistency can be found in the various accounts.

I’ll concede that the number of angels, by itself, is fairly trivial.  Perhaps I should have picked a more glaring issue, such as perhaps the fact that the cleansing of the temple comes at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in John, but at the end of his ministry in the Synoptics.  At any rate, if there are no inconsistencies in the Gospel accounts, then Jensen should have no trouble answering Dan Barker’s Easter Challenge:

http://www.ffrf.org/books/lfif/stone.php

I’ll even give Jensen a head start, Tektonics does have a response of sorts to Barker.  Tektonics attempts to tackle a few of the possible contradictions that Barker raises, but, notably, never actually answers Barker’s challenge.

            Genesis 1:29-30 does say that God gave the animals green plants to eat, but it does not say God gave them only plants to eat.

Here is the scripture:

Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so. [Genesis 1:29-30]

Ask ANY reputable theologian, and they will tell you that means everything was originally herbivorous.  It’s pretty obvious to anybody not trying to twist it to suite their agenda that God is giving plants and only plants to eat.  If He meant plants and animals, why didn’t He say so?  Further, per my quote from Answers-In-Genesis, if death and decay always existed and is what God had in mind all along as the right way for the earth to be, then why would God need to remake it?

And if this isn’t enough, Genesis 9:3-4 states explicitly that the allowance for meat is new:

Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. [Genesis 9:3-4]

Once again, I know your voodoo better than you do.  I trust by now Jensen is suitably embarrassed at his blatant incompetence...  It does get rather annoying to have to refute theists that don't have the slightest idea what their own book of voodoo says.

            This animal does not feel pain but it reacts to stimuli with behavior that is similar to our reaction to pain.

Please don’t own any pets.  Any fucking idiot can see that at least mammals have very similar abilities to suffer as we do.

I find it amazing that Doland would use this as a reason to reject Christianity. As a vegetarian myself with a strong sense of repulsion at animal abuse I can identify with Dolan's moral sensibility.

Hey, cool, something I can support from Jensen.  But this tells me he doesn’t really believe all the stuff he said before about maybe animals don’t really feel pain and all that.  For if he believed that, he wouldn’t have any reason to be repulsed by animal abuse.  All that previous nonsense seems to be just giving his God an “out” which even he doesn’t believe.

            I certainly hope that animals feel little or no pain, as I am sure Doland does as well.

I don’t hope for the implausible.

            But I cannot take the chance that I might be wrong in this regard.

Why not, the Bible takes such chances...

But also we should note that atheism also claims exclusivity. It claims there is no God when many other religions disagree. So it seems enormously hypocritical when atheists bring this up as an objection to Christianity.

Just to be clear, I didn’t bring this up as an objection, Strobel did.  Further, it’s not an objection most atheists would raise.  This is more the kind of objection an agnostic “God is unknowable” kind of person would raise--at least generally speaking.

He did mention an incident before his conversion in which he was swimming in the ocean and found himself being swept out to sea by the current. He cried out to God saying he would work for God if God would save him. Just then a wave caught him and pushed him back enough for him to swim back to shore. If Stevens had heard a voice, he didn't recount it in the particular autobiographical sketches I have found.

This was the incident I had heard about and was referring to.  I may have misspoke when I sad that Cat Stephens claims to have heard Allah.  But I think we are splitting hairs here.  He clearly recounts this story as part of his reasoning to accept Islam, whether he claims to have heard a voice or merely got a small miracle of a wave pushing him back to shore.

This is simply not true. The Christian message has always been very simple and straightforward: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved,"

Did you read the article I referenced, Christian Salvation?
http://www.secweb.org/index.aspx?action=viewAsset&id=192

            I think socio-political considerations should be recognized as having more influence for most world religions.

But God wants people to be Christians right?  And He’s omniscient and omnipotent, right? And yet He is limited by “socio-political considerations”? Hmmm…

            As for Zacharias' criticisms of other religions, this is hardly pretentious, condescending, or arrogant. These are simply honest criticisms.

His arrogance and pretentiousness comes from his assertion that it is just so much easier to be a follower of various other religions.  THAT is bullshit.

For example, it is difficult to deny that many people do not consider Christianity simply because of its moral demands. I know of some people who have stated bluntly that they had become convinced that Christianity is true but they were unwilling to accept it because of moral issues, because of relationships or attachments they are not willing to give up.

I guess these people must exist, Christians keep telling me they exist.  Such people are very strange people and I’ve never met any. At any rate, we are talking about the exception, not the norm.

            Thus we should in part redefine hell as the state in the afterlife in which one receives in justice exactly as one deserves.

Oddly, while this may be consistent with “all-just” but contradictory to “all-merciful” for to be merciful means to give out less punishment than is deserved.  Therefore God could not be both “all-just” and “all-merciful”.  Besides, who are you to “redefine hell”?  Where does the Bible say this is what hell is?

            If hell is of a limited duration, it may be that God's mercy is also in effect after this time of inflicted justice to call the lost to seek and find God.

“If…”  “May be…” blah blah blah.  Snore…

I think that there are three possible biblical views and some minor variations of one or more of these three. First is the Eternalist view Moreland presents that says that suffering continues forever. Second is the Annihilationist view…

Why is God so incompetent that He can’t explain how things work?

            Perhaps this state will be similar to that of the lost in C.S. Lewis' grey city in The Great Divorce or Charles William's Descent Into Hell.

I’ve read The Great Divorce.  That was a real snoozer too.  I know it is allegory, and not supposed to be taken as literally how hell is.  Yet, presumably, it is supposed to give some insight into hell, however indirect and figurative.  Are people acting anything remotely similar to the people in the book FOR ETERNITY even remotely plausible?  No.

            Perhaps it will be a life similar to our present life on earth though lacking any pleasure or pain.

“Perhaps…” blah blah blah.  ZZZzzzzz.

At this point it is difficult to say which of the three views considered is more merciful. The pointless and meaningless existence of the lost is hardly any different from simple annihilation.

C’mon, you don’t think people spending say, a trillion years in boredom and/or despair or whatever wouldn’t rather not exist at all?  Besides, you’re essentially conceding that none of your options are all that “merciful” from this allegedly all merciful deity.

Incidentally, there are many human endeavors in which one cannot change one's mind; I can think of anything from buying a house to committing suicide to jumping into a very deep pit with no one around to rescue you.

True.  In fact, nobody can ever really change one’s mind, as in to be able to change what they had done in the past.  All one can do is alter future course.  But that is a human limitation, due to our temporal nature.  God, being non-temporal per Jensen’s own arguments, has no such limitation.

            Don't we treat people as adults when we tell them that their choices really do count?

I suppose, but only because for us humans, all choices really do count, as we can’t ever undo what is done.  But, we every single day have the opportunity to change course.  That is if we live in a reasonable free society.  I suppose a slave doesn’t have that much opportunity to change his course.  But most people I know of prefer a reasonably free society precisely so they do have the opportunity to change course at their discression.

So hereafter let me call the first phase of hell "H1," and the second phase "H2" so long as all of these three possible views are being considered. "E1" will be the first phase of the Eternalist hell, "E2" the second phase, and "E" will be both considered together. "A1" will be the first phase of the Annihilationist hell, "A2" the second phase, and "A" will be both considered together. "PR1" will be the first phase of the Potential Restorationist hell, "PR2" the second phase, and "PR" will be both considered together.

Why don’t we just call them all BS and be done with it?  There isn’t anything in the Bible saying there are two phases of hell, its just pure ad-hoc BS.  I’m just not at all interested in all this hypothetisizing of the irrational.  No further comment on H1, E2, King to Queen’s Bishop 3, whatever the fuck BS, will be forthcoming from me.

            But for the unredeemed to be in God's presence would be a pain far worse than what they otherwise would endure in Hell

Speculation.  Implausible.

            That's just the way we're made and God couldn't have made us differently insofar as we are fully human.

Again with claims what your omnipotent being can and cannot do.

            Only by removing something of their awareness of their condition can this anguish be diminished

Drivel.

If all of these modern Christian apologists Doland alludes to are right, shouldn't God have said, "Wait just a minute, Satan; here, let me show you what Job will do." And then some cloud or mist appears and we see Job enduring his painful disease and arguing with his "friends" about why God allowed all of this.

Correct.  This is among the reasons we can reasonably conclude that Job is a story.  It is fiction.

            So much of the Bible makes no sense whatsoever if God could foreknow morally significant human choices without the choices occurring.

 Unless of course it is fiction, then it is easily understandable.

There is sufficient evidence for one to be justified in believing and sufficient to allow one to persuade oneself to disbelieve if one does not want to believe.

Translated into English, there is insufficient evidence, period.  And it’s not a crime if I want more evidence for something than you do.

So assuming that atheism accepts that human consciousness ends at death, what grounds can be offered for claiming that one should not commit murder?

Is theism any better?  In theism, you are just sending the person on to their eternal reward, so, what’s the problem?  It was of course a pope that said, “Kill them all, God will know his own.”

            First of all we have no reason to think that Hitler ever even believed "Jesus is the savior."

Sure we do.  He said he believed he was doing God’s work in exterminating the Jews.  But, I can concede that neither of us can read Hitler’s mind.  Maybe he was a closet atheist twisting Christianity for his purposes.  What I didn’t bring up was the fact that it was Martin Luther’s anti-Semitic teachings that were popularized in Nazi Germany in order to sell the holocaust to the Germans.  German military belt buckles said, “Gott mit uns” (God with us.)  Not all that much different than modern USA, “pray for our soldiers” while our soldiers destroy another country based on the lies of a theocratic fascist.  Goddamn, I hate theism…

            That God commanded one group of people at one time in history to do something does not indicate that it should always be done.

I thought God never changed and right-and-wrong never changes.  Can’t you fucking theists stick to a fucking story for two fucking seconds?

            But we still have reason to see that witches should have been executed under the Israelite theocracy.

So God was only joking with those dag-nab Ten Commandments, eh?

But we still have reason to see that witches should have been executed under the Israelite theocracy. When it is undeniable that the God of the Israelites lives and makes covenant with a people (as happened during the Exodus, if indeed this did happen) then God has the right to say that no other religion or spiritual practices should be followed except those practices given in the covenant.

You do of course realize that is the way that Islamic extremists justify killing Christians and other non-Muslims--that Allah is the One True God and has the right to order the death of any non-Muslim.  You are a dangerous fuck, Mr. Jensen.  I’m done with this response.  I know there is more to his paper that I haven’t bothered to respond to, but I’ve had all I can stanz, I can’t stanz no more.  Go fuck yourself and the horse you road in on.  Stay the fuck away from me.

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