Book Review, Part Deux: The Belief Instinct

More on Jesse Bering's book on the psychology of belief . "The Belief Instinct" continues harping on the issue of "theory of mind" throughout, but the points are interesting if not valid (I'm not one to judge).

Whenever I encounter a reference to the naturalness of belief, or basically any claim to the universality of some religious virtue, I want to hear about the unnatural examples.  This book delivers.
Toward the end of the particularly delightful chapter titled, "When God Throws People Off of Bridges," Bering refers to studies of autistics and aspies, and how their reactions differ from those of "normal" people. There are also studies of atheist reactions to "coincidences."  I found both of these particularly validating, as they prove my suspicion that though religious sentiment (or instinct) may be natural, it is not necessarily an accurate portrayal of or reaction to reality.

The surprising and uncomfortable result of studying atheist reaction to coincidences and unfortunate events is that we, too, want to believe in Fate or some guiding hand making things go the way they're supposed to.  He relates this to his pet theory (Theory of Mind) of course, but the very fact that atheists, myself included, feel a kneejerk reaction to these events says to me that 1) religious stories are the window dressing of human thought processes, not the other way around and 2) wishful thinking in atheists is the result of human psychology, not a suppressed belief in the supernatural.  This speaks to the "no true atheist" and "there are no atheists in foxholes" cannards.  Unlike less developed species and less-developed humans (i.e. autistics), most healthy humans not only survive by relating to the minds of other, but by hoping to find comfort and answers by reaching out to those minds.

Research has shown humans to be more susceptible to religious sentiment during trying times.  These are times when our usual social network has let us down somehow.  If you depend on your family for comfort and you get lost in a snowstorm, a fantasy creature that can hear your thoughts will make a fine substitute.  If your spouse has died, the person you would still feel an impulse to turn to is that same person whose death has distressed you.  Believing that your ancestors are watching out for that person will be a comfort both to you and to the spouse you assume will be equally as distressed.  If a tornado roars through town, everyone else feels the same way and they are dealing with their own traumatic stresses.  Enter the all-loving "Creator" (who allowed the destruction) they can gather together to pray to.

And speaking of Death... this is another feature of the Theory of Mind.  Bering cites studies showing that people have a very difficult time handling the idea that their mind will not continue after their body dies, a kind of theory of one's own mind.  He extrapolates this to the death of others, but I think that's the reverse.  We are utterly dependent on other people from our first breath to our last.  Christianity plays up the personal, but Eastern religious play to the theory of mind of others much more.  Ancestor worship and shrines to them play a role in some religions.  I think the difficulty of letting go of the individuals that have made our individual lives possible explains the belief in an afterlife much better.

Even Christians, who supposedly believe that souls go to Heaven or Hell, often want to believe their loved ones are waiting for them or watching over them.  My grandmother used to talk to my grandfather about the events of the day, even decades after his death.  I have heard people talk much more about their loved ones' afterlives than their fears or hopes for their own.  Angels take little children to God because he loves them.  (that one always makes me gag)   And then there's the Rainbow Bridge story, which has taken hold in a surprisingly short time.

I suppose these constitute what apologists like William Lane Craig call "properly basic beliefs."  He even cites the belief in the presence of other minds as a properly basic belief.  Craig tries to argue that some things are just so obvious that they can be treated as givens in philosophical debate, not debatable points themselves.  Alvin Plantinga makes this claim too (interesting video, even though he's full of crap).  Of course I find that idea that you can extrapolate from other humans existing to a supernatural god-human existing laughable, but with this Theory of Mind in mind (so to speak) it's a little easier to understand how Craig and thousands of years of religious thinkers have rationalized seriously irrational beliefs.

As an evolutionary psychologist, Bering believes this theory of mind is part of what gives humans a leg up in the survival of the species.  I can go along with that, and I appreciate the work of psychologists to study the phenomenon scientifically.

In order to appreciate the ease with which the people like Craig and Plantinga can convince people (and themselves) with such slim arguments I think we have only to look at a few logical fallacies.  The main problem with believing that belief in god is correct because it's part of human psychology (properly basic) is the fallacy called an appeal to nature or naturalistic fallacy.  The difference from the classic examples of natural = good is that it associates natural with correct, or justified.

We do unnatural things every day in modern society.  We fly in planes rather than walk barefoot to our destination.  We crap into the toilet rather than in the woods or over a hole in the ground.  We live into our eighties thanks to vaccinations, water sanitation, and antibiotics, among other things.  We wear glasses.  We eat Twinkies.  We blog on the internet.   Even the Amish will get into their horse and buggy and go into town on paved roads. 

None of us lives a truly "natural" life and we don't question it.  But yet when it comes to letting go of our cherished Sky Daddy and imagining our loved ones and ourselves truly becoming "dust into dust," then suddenly we (I mean "they") cry "properly basic" and "oh yeah? then where do you go when you die?"

Atheism is unnatural and difficult to get used to, but once you've freed yourself from the fairy tales, you find yourself wondering "Could I really have believed that?  How could I have tried so hard to believe something so false?"  This book gave me some answers to those questions.

And just as people are sometimes tempted to wizz by the side of the road or crap in the woods, we will sometimes revert to nature and wish a Sky Daddy or our grandparents were watching over us.  That's only natural.

Don't forget to check out The author's site, or read the book yourself.  I've probably garbled his message by putting in my own two cents. It's definitely a mind-changer, and I can imagine some minds being changed because I have a theory that other minds do indeed exist.

Questions for Christians

Christians ask themselves questions that conveniently have answers in Christianity.  Here are some questions that I'd like to see Christians ask themselves.

How many other religions have you studied?

Of all the world's possible religions, why do you think the stories of the Bible are more valid than the stories of the other religions?

If you were a Martian and landed on Earth having never heard of a concept of God, how would you decide which, if any, of the world's religions had merit?

If someday there would be definitive proof of the non-existence of God, would you still be a Christian?

Why do you believe what you believe?  (Favorite question on The Atheist Experience)

If you knew with 100% certainty that you would be going to Hell, would you still be a Christian?

Of all the denominations there are, why do you belong to the one you belong to? 

Have you read any of the scholarly theological literature of your denomination?

Have you read every word of The Bible?

How do you reconcile the inconsistencies of the Bible?  (There are many.  Refer to this list at the Secular Web if you have not realized the Bible is loaded with them)

How do you know which parts of the Old Testament can be disregarded by Christians?  If you don't know, then why not?

An Atheist Catechism: Part One, The Questions Christians Ask

Christians who object to atheism usually demand that atheists answer the questions that they think their religion answers for them.  I imagine believers in other traditions do the same but I haven't had much experience with them.  Catholicism set the trend with the Catechism - questions and answers for young Catholics to learn. 

There are two problems with the dialogue between Christians and atheists.  The first is that Christians define the  terms and control the territory.  They have well-worn traditions behind them, but little experience asking the questions they should answer.  They only "answer" the questions they have been taught to ask.  There's also some psychological projection going on, in my opinion.  They have so little idea of how others think that they can't conceive of their preconceptions not being shared, only that the conclusions differ.  They seem very concerned about atheists' souls, as if they can conceive of not believing in a god but they can't imagine not believing in a soul.

They want us to have a list of answers that would be parallel to their Catechism (Even if they're not Catholic, they have one of sorts).  So I've decided to give them one.

I've come up with some answers to their (often stupid) questions.    Most of these are questions I've been asked, but I've also seen a lot of the same questions over and over on the interwebs. I think we've all been faced with most of these if we've been at all open about our atheism. My favorite online source for Christian stupidity is the archive of the Atheist Experience call-in cable access show.   (Check out the Atheist Experience blog too!) They get some loop-dee-loos, and they have great answers for the loonies that call in.  I bet there are plenty other zingers out there.  Feel free to add to my list in the comments section.   Part Two will be the questions I'd like to see Christians answer.

Q:  Where do you go when you die?
A:  When you're dead you cease to exist, so you don't go anywhere.

Q:  Aren't you worried that you might be wrong and you might go to hell?
A:  Everyone could be wrong, including Christians.  I don't find the Christian stories convincing, so no, I'm not worried about Hell.

Q:  How can you be moral without God?
A:  The same way that everyone else who isn't a Christian can be moral, and Christians too, for that matter.  Society dictates morals, not holy books, or else Christians would be stoning children that have been raped and giving all their money to the poor.

Q:  You're really just angry with God.
A:  You can't be angry at something you don't believe exists.  That's like being angry at the Easter Bunny.

Q:  You're really just angry at the abuses of the Church
A:  The church's behavior has sometimes been atrocious (so much for belief instilling morality) but whether the church is naughty or nice has no bearing on whether a supernatural deity actually exists.

Q:  The church has been responsible for great works of art.

A:  So has Greek mythology.  So have other religions.  So has opium.  Artists will be inspired by whatever stories they find in the culture around them.

Q:  How do you know the Bible isn't true?
A:  There's very little evidence to validate it, and what little there is merely validates a few names and places, not the presence of a supernatural deity.

Q:  Isn't it arrogant to presume you're right and all those Christians are wrong?
A:  Not any more arrogant than Christians believing they are right and all the people in the other 2/3 of the world are wrong.  And anyway, which is more arrogant?  Not believing in something unverified, or believing oneself capable of sorting out the truth from the non-truth of thousands of untestable claims?

Q:  You think you know everything, don't you?  (also: You think you have all the answers!)
A:  Atheism is defined as not believing in stories of deities.  It's not defined by what is known.  Some atheists are quite knowledgeable, which probably isn't a coincidence.  Many of us know the Bible better than Christians, and we know more about science than evolution deniers.  (Granted, that's not difficult to do)

Q:  Science can't answer everything.  What about love?
A:  Actually, neurosciences have established quite a bit of knowledge about love.  Like other emotions, love exists within the brain.

Q:  How do you explain the human need to believe in God?  God made humans different from the animals.

A:  While I agree that humans are different from other animals (humans are animals), the belie in god doesn't qualify as a sound reason for believing in the supernatural.  Evolution explains a lot of strange behaviors.  In the case of religion, there are several theories, mainly about social control and cohesion.  Check out this reading list or the books of Michael Shermer.

Q: What about the miracles of the Bible?

A: What about the miracles of all the other holy books of the world? They are myths, propaganda, lies, and even trickery. They are stories without confirming evidence.  Christians blithely dismiss the claims of other religions but are gullible regarding their own.

Q:  [insert seemingly miraculous prayer story here]  How do you explain that?

A:  Prayer has been proven not to work in medical settings, yet people continue to believe prayer can heal and protect.  Anecdotes about a person's prayers being answered are the result of the human tendency toward confirmation bias.  You will remember the "hits" and forget the "misses."  (or rationalize them away)  Not to mention, the people who were in life-threatening situations, prayed, and then died are not around to tell anyone that prayer didn't work for them, which creates a sampling bias.

Q:  Christianity has been around for 2,000 years.  How could it survive if it were false?

A:  The same way that Judaism can survive for 3,000 years and Hinduism can survive for 4,000 years.  It's a social system, with a lot of purposes besides telling the "truth."  Children are indoctrinated from a young age and the society is so steeped in the traditions of the religion that few people question the premises.

Q:  There are millions of Christians.  They can't all be wrong.

A:  Yes, they can.

Q:  Nothing can exist without a creator, so the fact that things exist proves there's a God.

A:  This is the "First Cause" argument.  Things come into being in nature without an intelligent being pulling the strings every day, so the premise is false.  Even if the premise were true, that would mean that there couldn't be a God because God would have to have had a creator.  And if God could exist without a creator, then so could the universe.

Q:  You can't prove that God doesn't exist.

A:  Of course you can't!  You can't prove a negative about anything.  So therefore, the burden of proof is on the theist to prove that there is a God.  What theists offer as "proof" is not very compelling:  heavily edited "holy" books, unverifiable personal experiences, and admiration for nature.  Atheists can feel confident that the odds of Christian claims being false are high enough to be virtual proof.

Q:  If you're an atheist doesn't that mean that you don't believe in anything?

A:  Not necessarily. First, do you mean "anything supernatural?"  It's possible to be an atheist and yet believe in a soul, or ESP, or some other supernatural idea.  Atheism is merely not believing in a god... any god.  Most atheists also happen to be non-believers about all claims of the superntural because those claims are as weak as religious claims, so you are partly right.  There are many natural things to believe in:  love, beauty, society, family, honesty, altruism, etc.  There's nothing supernatural about any of those.

Q:  If you don't believe in God, that means you want to be God.

A:  I don't believe in the Easter Bunny, and yet I don't want to be the Easter Bunny (at least not without collecting a fee from whoever wants me to wear a costume at the Mall).  You don't believe in Thor, and I bet you don't want to be Thor.  This is shorthand for the argument that you can't be moral without God the Big Brother eavesdropping on your thoughts and looking over your shoulder 24/7.  It's just plain false.

Q:  You just left the Church because you want to sin

A:  If I really believed in the concept of "sin" the last thing I would do is leave the Church!  Unless you're hinting that you can game the system and run around sinning until the very last moment then accept Christ as your Lord and Savior and have it all erased.  What has been considered a "sin" has changed so much over the history of the Church that almost anything a person does over the course of the day could have been considered a "sin" at some point in history by some religious group.

Q:  So then your life has no meaning

A:  Sure, it has meaning.  It has more meaning than yours, in fact, because the time I spend on Earth is all there is, so I want to make the most of it.  I value the people around me because we're all in this together.  I empathize with their suffering and I celebrate their accomplishments.  Those things have value in themselves without any kind of supernatural meaning attached to them.

Immorality of Christianity

Christians love to claim that they are more moral because of being Christian, which of course is debatable.  The U.S. is a "Christian nation" and yet it has a higher murder rate than Japan, where Christianity is a tiny minority.  When you point out to them that once you've accepted Christ as your "savior" there's no reason not to sin, they cite Jesus' teachings about how to live, but there is no punishment for not following those teachings.  You're supposed to do those things because you want to once you've been "saved."  But good works can't get you into heaven; only believing in Christ can, supposedly.  So Gandhi is in Hell and Hitler is in Heaven.  How is that moral?

If I were to suddenly believe in an immortal soul and decided to align myself with a religion to protect its future, Christianity would be the least appealing choice for these reasons:

Scapegoating.  Instead of individual repsonsibility for bad actions, Christ was "sacrificed" in our place.  If you are Catholic, you have a shot at going to Hell anyway if you commit a "mortal sin," but in general you get off scot-free.

Eternal reward / punishment.  Eternity is a very, very, very long time.  And you have at most 100 or so years to get it right here on earth.  Why should someone be rewarded or punished with eternity for a finite life's decisions?

"Grace."  Being a Christian isn't necessarily a matter of choice.  A lot of evangelicals believe their religiosity is a gift from God.  So not only do they get off scot free for eternity for being believers, they didn't even make the right choice on their own and yet they get the credit for it.

Predestination.  In Calvinistic Christiantiy God is believed to to have chosen who gets the gift of "grace" in advance.  Curiously, he seems to grace only people who were brought up in Calvinistic churches.  Very convenient.  Even non-Calvinists believe in some predestination if they consider the prophecy claims of Jesus to be true.  In that case, Pontius Pilate and the Jews who demanded Christ's crucifixion were merely carrying out God's will.

Demented ideas of "parenthood."  God the good "father" has decided all humans deserve to die for eternity because of Eve's sin, but then he changes his mind and sacrifices his one good child in exchange for all of them... oops some of them, depending on if they accept the whole redemption story.  Before that, he wipes out thousands of innocents along with the sinners in his genocidal rampages.  You can inflict any amount of physical harm to your children that you want as long as you don't kill them.  Is that any way to treat your "children?"

Justice denied.  If you sin, then you are forgiven because you believe you have been forgiven, your victim receives no redress for what you did to him/her at all.  If the sin can be wiped clean, why not the harm done by that sin?  There's nothing in the New Testament that shows any concern for the victim of a sin.  If you murder someone then "accept Jesus as Lord and Savior (hallelujah)" their family still suffers that loss.

Problem of Evil.  "Evil" in the theo-philosophical sense of pain, misery, death, destruction, or basically anything you don't like happening seemingly at random.  God (and Jesus) can perform miracles but seems more interested in sending disaster to the world.  Sure, it's a miracle for you if you survive a tornado, but what about the person next door who died?  Weren't they also praying to be spared?  It seems so random.  heh heh oh right.... it is!   Fortunately the power of rationalization gives God a pass on things like this.  If he spares you it's because he has plans for your life.  If he lets a tornado kill a 6-year-old it's because he wants her to "be with the angels."  Either way, it's not based on whether you're a good person or not.

If Christianity were to start as a cult today, it would be so thoroughly laughed at and discredited it wouldn't stand a chance.  It only survives today because of childhood indoctrination and a long tradition of rationalization (oops that's called "apologetics").  If there had never been any religion before today and you suddenly had to pick from among the ten or so biggest religions, choosing Christianity would be selfish and amoral.  There's nothing noble in being a Christian.

God Seeks Revenge on Republicans

After punishing Japan for not being Christian, God has turned his wrath to the American South, where his people have been voting for Republicans, often in his name.  Dozens of neighborhoods have been wiped off the map, and hundreds have died.

The following interview explains why:
Interviewer:"Why did you take the lives of so many who were well loved?"
God: "My ways are mysterious."

"What about those who escaped with only minor injuries or were spared altogether?"
"It's a warning.  Stop voting for Republicans, or you're next."

"You sent tornadoes, which could have killed innocent babies and fetuses.  Isn't that unfair?"
*shrug*  "Collateral damage happens."

"What message do you have for those who were severely injured and will go through their lives as amputees or paraplegics?  Should they be grateful to you that they survived, or angry about their life-altering injuries?"
"My ways are mysterious."

"No, seriously.  Half will be grateful and half will be angry.  Who's right?"
"Listen, singling out individuals for retribution is too much like work.  I sent tornadoes, not arrows!  I don't really care one way or another who gets kills, maimed or spared.  It was a message to all of the Republicans."

"That answers my next question: wouldn't some of the victims have been Democrats?"
"Probably.  But they're to blame, too.  Did they volunteer in voter registration drives?  Did they contribute enough money to the campaigns?  Probably not."

"You're not sure?  But you're God!"
*shrug*  "That's too much like work, too.  Listen, if I really wanted to make lists of who did what, would I make Heaven or Hell such a simple proposition?"

"And that is...?"
"If they believe in me, they're in.  If they don't, they go to Hell.  I don't give a crap about all those individual sins.  I wait until a critical mass of sinning pisses me off then I send a tornado or earthquake or plague to tell them all to straighten up."

"Or a Great Flood.  What did all those animals do to deserve drowning?"
"Hey, listen.  I'm God.  I make up the rules.  I spared a few of each species to kickstart the recovery."

"Some animals probably died in the tornadoes too."
"Yeah, probably.  Hey, I miss the days when they'd get barbecued for me at the Temple.  That was some good eatin'.  The ninnies thought that Jesus was supposed to substitute for that, but could I eat my own son?  THEY'RE not supposed to eat the sacrifice, the priests and I get it all.  But that's for another day."

"Another 'act of God' you mean?"
"I'm trying to decide.  I mean, tornadoes & earthquakes are getting old hat.  And you humans are getting too good at sanitation and vaccination for my plague trick."

"You're God, can't you overcome those minor obstacles?"
"heh heh  just keep overusing anti-bacterial soap and you'll see..."

"See what?"
"heh heh my ways are mysterious.  Well, gotta book it. A little kid just got hit by a car and his whole family are praying for him."

"You're going to cure him?"
"Hell no, I'm going to give him a raging infection that will slowly kill him after he 'miraculously' survives emergency surgery.  I love those switcheroos.  Gotta get my laughs somewhere since Seinfeld was cancelled."

Happy Zombie Jesus Day

If I had had doubts about the zombie Jesus sightings reported in the Bible when I was a teen, I don't remember.  The question of whether he rose from the dead didn't really figure into my doubts about the validity of Christianity.  If there was a God, Christianity might be valid.  If there were no god, then it didn't matter what the Bible said, even if some supernatural-seeming resurrection did indeed happen.

But then Elvis died.  Or maybe he didn't.  I was a fan but not a rabid fan.  I had other things on my mind, like boys I knew in person.  But some fans just couldn't accept his ignoble death.  How prosaic of a "king" to die from something as ordinary as a drug overdose.

It didn't take long for him to appear to people, or near people, or near people who knew people, who would then report that he was in fact alive.   I don't recall if the media reported on the similarity between Elvis sightings and Zombie Jebus sightings, but I certainly noticed it.  And I've never forgotten it.  It completely threw the Easter story into doubt for me. If people could imagine they see Elvis in our modern, rational times (heh, my thinking at the time), then certainly superstitious ancient peoples could have made the same mistake.

So now, every Easter, I think of Elvis.  A hunka hunka bloated drug-addicted zombie gobbling up the brains of the gullible.  I wish he hadn't died, but he did.

And then Jesus, like David Koresh, did indeed die from the inevitable backlash against possibly psychotic hubris.  Very sad in both cases.

So, for your Easter reading, I offer an article from one of my favorite organizations, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal: 

http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/theres_no_debate_elvis_is_not_alive/

Book Review: The Belief Instinct, a.k.a. The God Instinct

Jesse Bering's book on the psychology of belief was titled "The God Instinct" in the U.K. but released as "The Belief Instinct" in the U.S.  I would love to hear the story of how they decided to change the title.

This is a rare book that cites verifiable research sources and yet reads like something you could pick up at Waldenbooks.  I'll link to some of these sources in this review.

The book starts off rather tedious, but I didn't know a lot of this stuff so I stuck with it.  The main point seems to be that "Theory of Mind" (i.e., theory that others have minds) is behind the need to believe in some intelligence in the universe. 

The next section talks about the concept of having a purpose in life.   I've heard this argument many times from theists:  If you don't believe in God, then your life has no purpose.  Their purpose?  If they're glassy-eyed fundamentalists, it's to glorify god, or perhaps just worship him.  But in reality their purpose is to stay on God's good side so they won't go to Hell.  Ask a Christian sometime if they would still worship God if they knew with 100% certainty they would be going to Hell anyway.  I bet they've never considered that.   If you've never encountered such a theist, I suggest having a listen to this caller (Clifton) on the Atheist Experience.  He demonstrates both of these first two psychological needs perfectly.  Note that it doesn't matter whether any of Christianity is true, only that it supposedly gives one a purpose. Believers don't cling to their religions because they really believe in everything in the ancient texts.  They cling to them because these religions fulfill an existential need and they can't imagine going through life with that need unmet.

The chapter that particularly intrigued me is called "When God Throws People off of Bridges."  There is a remarkable history of people plunging to their deaths from bridge collapses, and preachers afterward trying to defend God's decision to dump them into the drink.

The first of these happened in Britain in 1845.  A crowd of women and children gathered to watch a stunt on the river below.  The bridge collapsed and about sixty children and as many as forty adults lost their lives.  The local reverend urged the grieving townspeople to reflect on their sins, which he blamed for the disaster.  (A local inquest blamed the design of the bridge)

Piaget's theory of the moral development of children to the rescue!  We want JUSTICE!  We want things to make sense.  We want some parental surrogate to sort out the good from the bad and mete out the punishment to those who deserve it.  This is somehow tied to a concept called "intentionality."  Things happen for a reason, and someone intended things to be that way.  When good things happen, it's because we're good people and we deserve it.  When bad things happen we must be to blame, and some supernatural entity metes out the punishment.

So... the more you suffer, the more you believe in God.  If you live in Northern Europe, you're fairly comfortable and you don't need God.  If you're unhealthy and living in poverty in Mississippi you're likely to be part of the overwhelming majority in that state that believe in God.  This whole thing also explains what I considered a surprising denouement in PBS' Nova episode "The Bible's Buried Secrets," that I reviewed here.  When the Jews were defeated and dragged off to Babylon, they became more religious.  It also explains the (false) idea that "There are no atheists in foxholes."  If you believe in your own religion because it helps you deal with existential fears, the fear of death would be the ultimate.  Psychological projection takes it into the realm of the other's mind (theory of mind again).  It's hard to imagine another mind that isn't like our own.

I'm still only halfway through the book but I thought I'd post this half-book review, seeing as I keep digressing into my own ideas anyway!

I recommend it for anyone who is tired of the Science vs. Religion debate.  The scientific method plays into this because of the studies the author cites, but it's about the psychology of belief, which I think is at the root of religion.

While you wait for me to get around to the rest of the book for the second half of my review, check out The author's site

What is the Square Root of a Tomato?

PBS Nova: The Bible's Buried Secrets (a review)

This is must-see TV for Christians, not just because it's about the Bible, but because critical thinking and the scientific method and *gasp* evidence are weighed against the stories of the Bible.  Brilliantly, they take up leads that seem to confirm Biblical stories then look for further confirmation.  Often they find interesting disconfirmation.

Right off the bat, they dismiss Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers as myth.  They also point out that they are so full of discrepancies that they  couldn't have been written by one person (i.e., Moses), more likely five.  Not to mention, Moses couldn't have described his own death.  Incredibly, nobody pointed this out (publicly at least) until the eighteenth century.  They do get back to these books at the end, which I found to be a kind of cool denouement to the story.

They confirm what I've seen on atheist sites, that there's no evidence of Israelites being enslaved in Egypt.   They find that there were indeed people who had been enslaved in Egypt, but they were Canaanites, not Jews.  They returned to Canaan as refugees, and the theory is that these people hooked up with people who had escaped from  slavery in deteriorating city-states in Canaan, and together these cultures became Judaism.  The population in the few settlements in Canaan, ca. 1200, would have been from 3,000 - 5,000.  After the collapse of the city-states there are more sites and the population could have been as much as 45,000.  Sites now have "israelite" houses in egalitarian societies.

Interestingly, the Canaanite earth-mother goddess is Asherah, God's wife.  A gajillion statuettes of her are found in the area.  She has ginormous tits and sometimes is portrayed with a baby on her knee.  Kind of spooky after seeing so many Mary images with the baby Jesus on her knee.  Mary's tits have never been anywhere near as impressive as Asherah's.   She was one impressive fertility goddess.

The show goes to the digs that may have been Solomon's palace, and they theorize about the extent of the Jewish kingdom based on some six-chambered gates (as described in the bible).  Some of the virtual architecture is really impressive and well done.  I appreciate the imagination of it all.

Some things I take exception to:  A Babylonian king who bragged that he'd "killed the king of the House of David" is taken to be proof that David existed.  No, it proves that the expression "House of David" was in use by that time.  The discovery of that phrase would still be significant.  I don't know why they feel they have to take that leap.

In the end, the Babylonian captivity after a humiliating defeat is the catalyst for Judaism to take its final form.  Exiled communities figure out how to practice their religion without a temple to take burnt offerings to, resulting in synagogues.  And the writings that had been rescued from the destruction of the Temple were put together as the Bible by Josiah.

This is where the show takes a crazy turn:  the destruction of Israel and the Temple threw the people into an existential crisis.  Why had their god not protected them?  Rather than adopt the god of their captors (a tradition amongst captives-turned-slaves at the time) they decided to dump Asherah and obey the one-God rule.

Now comes the Torah, a.k.a. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy.  Other than a brief prayer found in a grave, there's no evidence of any of these texts until about this time.  If they were cobbled together from folk tales during captivity, that would explain the angry God of these books.   It would also explain the picky-picky god that has hundreds of rules to follow.

The result is a two-part bible:  The Torah, which is myth and morals, and the historical Bible, which starts with David (if he really existed).  This is the other reason I wish all Christians would watch this.  The stupid fundamentalists who want to believe in an six-day creation and a worldwide flood could take this division as evidence that it's not historical.  I don't see why they would find that so threatening.  If Josiah was as infallible as the Council of Nicea, then does it really matter if the Flood never happened?   Christians are powerful rationalizers.  They believe God's ways are mysterious, he has his reasons, blah blah blah.. why can't God have his mysterious unknowable reasons for putting fairy tales in his holy book?

The timeline of Judaism turns out to be much briefer than I would have expected.  The Canaanite settlements that may have marked the beginning of a Jewish identity dated to ca. 1200 B.C.  The Torah dates to 800-900 B.C. 

The show seems to go backward and forward in time, which makes it a little hard to put together a timeline.  It's based on a book, which makes me want to check out the book.  The book may lay things out in a more linear way.  The book won't have the cool interviews and virtual architecture, though.  So... it's the kind of thing that a book *and* a DVD would be necessary to fully comprehend.

My biggest problem with the whole thing is that the starting point is always the written word.  I wonder what they would conclude if there were no words leading them toward specific conclusions.  For example, they find a huge palatial building just where you'd expect to find Solomon's palace.  I don't think that makes Solomon real.  Imagine someone going to the ruins of Atlanta in 3,000 years, finding evidence of a fire, and then concluding that "Gone with the Wind" was a true historical document.  They would also find several mansions outside of Atlanta that could have been "Tara" too.   At least this shown seems to look at the Bible as the work of human hands rather than divine intervention, but I wish there had been a little more skepticism about the findings.

Except for that, it's fascinating and worth a look-see.  You can see it online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/bibles-buried-secrets.html

PBS's "Nova" tonight: "The Bible's Buried Secrets"

It's a rerun from 2008 but I caught part of it and I'll DVR it to review here.  The part I caught traced the origins of the Jews to Canaanites enslaved by Egypt, who escaped and together with other refugees they created Judaism.  The first reference to a god with a name like "Yaweh" is an Egyptian reference to one that sounds like "Yahoo."  Cracked me up!

I like how PBS ignores religion until right before Easter and Christmas, when they feel obliged to air non-Christian shows for some reason.  Strange, but interesting.


You can get the DVD here:

http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=3333844&cp=&kw=bibles+buried+secrets&origkw=bible%27s+buried+secrets&sr=1

How many of the Old Testament Stories Really Happened?

Christians pick and choose what to believe based on whether the OT stuff conforms to their prejudices.  And then there are the nutters who want to believe the Bible is "history."  Using this timeline, let's see how the OT's Greatest Hits stand up to archaeology, textual criticism, and history:

Creation Story	Disproved
Adam and Eve	Disproved
Flood / Noah's Ark	Disproved
Sodom and Gomorrah	Cities possibly proved
... but the people? probably fables	No evidence
Slavery of the Israelites	Disputed
Job	Doubted by believers
The Plagues	Not true

Beware: The Elevens

Seen on Facebook:

Sept 11( NY) Jan 11( Haiti) march 11(Japan).. Luke21:10-11, Then Jesus said to his disiples; Nations will rise against nation & Kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes,famines & pestilinces in various places and great signs from Beacon.'Jesus says behold I come quikly'.(So ask yourself are you ready for his return)? So sad to many wont post!!!

I didn't post a reply.  There's just no room on FB to post all the reasons why this is wrong, conceited, self-centered, hard-hearted, stupid, a-historical and inapppropriate.

Not enough room here, either.  And anyway, I found a picture that says it all.

Okay, let's try anyway.

First, in order to find this "pattern" you have to ignore all sorts of horrible events that didn't happen on the 11th of their respective months.  The Indonesian tsunami happened on December 26.  Christchurch, NZ suffered a terrible earthquake on February 22.  Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana on August 29.  And of course God attempted to destroy the city of Nashville with a horrendous flood beginning May 1, 2010.  Apparently The Grand Ole Opry offended God.

If you put all those events into a list you see no pattern at all.

Second, if God was sending a message by making earthquakes, how does 9/11 figure into this?  It wasn't an earthquake, famine, or pestilence.  The terrorists weren't a nation or even citizens of the country they were living in, so you can't count that as "nation against nation," either. 

Third, all these things have been happening for all of history.  If you want to be a shyster prognosticator, it's a safe bet that there will be wars, earthquakes, famine and pestilence somewhere in the world most of the time.  It's like dousers finding aquifers (which are under virtually all land).

Fourth, as if we need more reasons to argue against this tripe, why would all this horrible stuff presage Jesus' return?  What kind of god does that?  Wouldn't a loving god say "In order to give you a last chance to repent, I'll give you a two-minute warning (remember, God isn't very good with time, so that would be like 20 years).  I'll send rainbows and cure everyone from their cancers and stop all the locusts from destroying any crops."

Fifth *sigh*  The "endtimes" have come and gone many many many times, most recently in 2007.

I don't de-friend people who post this stuff.  They're nice people and I see them as victims rather than morons.   Still...  I wish they would think a little harder and develop some critical skills.  It's rude of me to argue in a FB thread, and it has to be massively offensive for me to break the unwritten FB etiquette rules.  This one didn't rise to that level but it merited a post and a facepalm.

Poe's Law? Or perhaps the corollary?

Someone named TamTamPamela posted a video that she now says was a hoax.  In it, she says that god is "good" and the Japanese earthquake and tsunami were his way of telling the atheists that he's "there."  Is it real or is it someone from 4chan?



The question that people aren't asking is the true important question: Why is it so hard to tell a troll from the real thing?  Why have crazy Christian crackers gone so far off the rails that what should have been obvious as a troll (if it really was) could pass for the real thing?  Shouldn't crazy hatespeech be questioned as an attempt to smear Christians?  Why are we so conditioned to expect this crap?

Because Christianity has a long history of blaming natural disasters on God's wrath.  The notable exception would be tornadoes ripping up "Tornado Alley," which happens to coincide with the "red" stripe of right-wing fundamentalist Christianity that runs up the middle of the U.S. map.  Tornadoes are just tonadoes, but earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and droughts (except the 1930s "Dust Bowl" in the midwest!) are God's way of punishment when he's too impatient to wait for everyone to die and then throw them into Hell.

And because the Old Testament God comes around whenever it's handy for them to summon him, but if someone (ohhh atheists, for example) cites the genocide and atrocities of the OT "God" suddenly they believe in the New Testament.

Anywho, this whole thing introduced me to the Trollnews channel, which is some fun watching/listening.

Angie the Anti-Theist Reads "Purpose-Driven Life"

She reads Rick Warren so you don't have to! Way to take one for the team!

God Hates Uppity Teenagers

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/16/teen-creator-of-note-to-god-app-in-coma/

This is very very sad for his family but it seems to prove the pointlessness of believing in a god.  His idiot relatives believe it's a "miracle" that someone found him on a road after being hit by a car... but he was supposed to be meeting someone on that road so it was virtually certain someone would find him either by accident or by searching for him.  A real miracle would be having a car hit him, kill him, and then he gets up like nothing happened.  Or maybe the car goes right through him.  It would be even better if the car were a police cruiser with a dashboard camera to catch the whole thing.  That would convince me of the supernatural (not of God, though).

Check out the demo of the app he created.  The examples of the notes people send to god are just so pathetic, but I feel sympathy for them, even if they are deluded.  Rape victims, worried girlfriends waiting for MRI results, grieving parents, they all feel some kind of psychological pain that they don't have any method of coping with except this app on their iphone.  *sniff*  Actually using the phone as a phone and calling a friend to talk it over doesn't occur to people anymore apparently. 

Pray for Japan... even though they're atheists

...in the sense that they don't believe in a supreme being, anyway.  Shintoism and Buddhism are prevalent "religions" but belief in a supreme single deity is not required.

I keep seeing and hearing of people saying they're "praying for" Japan but not saying what they're praying for exactly.  It's really a kind of meaningless expression of concern.  Deep down they know their prayers won't affect the outcome other than to make them feel a bit better about being helpless. This is the kind of insipid vague crapola that bugs me when it's directed toward me.  If you actually question the good-hearted souls who offer to pray for others they will quickly become embarrassed at how shallow and useless their gesture is.

Here are some questions to ask in case you run into this inanity:

1. Why would a Christian god care about non-Christians?
2. Why didn't God prevent the earthquake and tsunami?
3. What are you asking God to do, exactly?
4. Why didn't you pray for Japan (or Haiti, or Thailand) before this happened?
5. What about all the other people in the world who need help?  Why not pray for them?
6. Why are you only praying for the living?  Why not ask god to forgive the deceased for being Shintoists and Buddhists?
7. Why aren't you praying for God to halt the aftershocks?  (they likely aren't)
8. Why should God listen to you?
9. If you pray for the Japanese and another earthquake kills more people there, does that mean God doesn't answer prayers?
10. Why doesn't God perform a miracle and bring all the victims back to life?

Are Christians Different from Scientologists?

Awareness of cults such as Scientology was part of the deconversion process for me.  In them I saw the process that early Christianity may have undergone:  charismatic leader, incoherent yet appealing myth, and devoted followers convinced that to leave the cult would mean death.

This article from the New Yorker made me think of Scientology again.  ...and why learning about Scientology put a few more nails in the coffin on any credibility Christianity had for me.

First, there's the whole issue of personality.  L. Ron Hubbard & Jesus both claimed to know the big Truths of Life and how to avoid pain and spiritual death. That's true of all cult leaders as far as I know.  They have to offer some insight that their victims adherents can't find elsewhere.

The point where Paul Haggis knew his religion's leaders were full of crap was when he saw one lie about whether they had a policy called "disconnection."  "Disconnection" is when the Scientologist has to sever ties to relatives who are anti-Scientology.  Sound familiar?  Perhaps it's because you are familiar with Christianity:  "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."  (Luke 14:26)

Reading through the article I find more parallels.  Scientology bragged on itself in its publications:  "participation in Scientology brings to many a broader social consciousness, manifested through meaningful contribution to charitable and social reform activities."  I hear this kind of thing from Christians.  They justify their belief system by its effects rather than proving their deity exists.  They have a lineage of creativity backing them up, too.  From Michelangelo to Bach our society has been enriched by their belief system.   ... as if Michelangelo and Bach were incapable of coming up with ideas for secular art.  The Brandenburg Concertos are probably Bach's most famous works, and they're not at all sacred.

Scientology got its foothold by cultivating celebrities:  "In 1955, a year after the church’s founding, an affiliated publication urged Scientologists to cultivate celebrities: “It is obvious what would happen to Scientology if prime communicators benefitting from it would mention it.”

Christianity benefitted from Constantine and later rulers adopting it as their official religion.  Back then, there were no movie stars, so they had to settle for kings and emperors. 

The following could easily be said of almost any believer in any faith:

“I had such a lack of curiosity when I was inside,” Haggis said. “It’s stunning to me, because I’m such a curious person.” He said that he had been “somewhere between uninterested in looking and afraid of looking.” His life was comfortable, he liked his circle of friends, and he didn’t want to upset the balance. It was also easy to dismiss people who quit the church. As he put it, “There’s always disgruntled folks who say all sorts of things.”

Once you've been sucked into (or born into) a religion, what keeps you there has nothing to do with theology, historicity, or any "proof" of the supernatural.  It's the comfort of belonging to a community, probably the most human need we have.  It's evolutionary: we are social creatures that depend on community for the survival of individuals, and our communities depend on the loyalty of the individuals for the survival of the community.

Yet Christians will point out how great their communities are as if other religions can't make the same claim.  (Americans will also brag on how great Americans are in a disaster, as if people in other countries won't rescue their neighbors during a natural disaster)

Some aspects of Scientology baffled him. He hadn’t been able to get through “Dianetics”: “I read about thirty pages. I thought it was impenetrable.” But much of the coursework gave him a feeling of accomplishment

Boy does this sound like the typical Christian.  Most have not read the Bible, or if they have they did it through coursework, being led to pay attention only to the convenient portions.  Bible study is one of those things I can respect because at least they're not just nodding their heads once a week on Sunday, but now that I'm an outsider, I realize there is no study of alternate viewpoints.  Of course any religion seems valid as long as you intentionally ignore all other viewpoints.

Haggis says: "I think I did, in some ways, become a better person. I did develop more empathy for others." 

This is also true of other religions.  The leaders and community can provide valid psychological insight and help adherents to develop empathy.  Again, no proof at all of the validity of claims of the supernatural.  Just a benefit of belonging to a community.  In the case of Scientology they suck you in with a promise of psychological help, and perhaps they really do help.  But do they help more than other types of therapy?  Or even confession? 

And how do they deal with doubt?  About the same way that Christians do:

Haggis expected that, as an O.T. VII, he would feel a sense of accomplishment, but he remained confused and unsatisfied. He thought that Hubbard was “brilliant in so many ways,” and that the failing must be his. At one point, he confided to a minister in the church that he didn’t think he should be a Scientologist. She told him, “There are all sorts of Scientologists,” just as there are all sorts of Jews and Christians, with varying levels of faith. The implication, Haggis said, was that he could “pick and choose” which tenets of Scientology to believe.

You might make the case that Scientology charges its victims adherents for religious instruction, but Christ told his victims followers to give all their money to their communal pot.  He also advocated a life of poverty, which rich people conveniently forgot.

No, the main difference is that the delusional ramblings of L. Ron Hubbard are of more recent vintage, so more easily dismissed.  Ancient beliefs seem to hold more sway.  If a text was written by long-dead writers who can argue with them?  Lao Tsu and Moses didn't leave paper trails, unlike Hubbard, whose military career and writings are available for investigation. 

But even though Scientology's claims have been proved false, its victims adherents cling to their false beliefs because belonging to a "religion" is more important than knowing whether its claims have any validty.  That's the main thing Scientology has in common with Christianity.

God lets down Christians.... again

God hates evangelists

The Adams' website chronicles their worldwide voyage, which included trips to New Zealand, China, Cambodia and Panama.


One aspect of their travels, according to the site, "is friendship evangelism -- that is, finding homes for thousands of Bibles, which have been donated through grants and gifts, as we travel from place to place." They also say their mission is to "allow the power of the Word to transform lives."

Despite their own prayers and the prayers of people that God really listens to (i.e. pastors, as in the video linked on the news page), these people were killed by the Somali pirates who overtook their boat. 

I don't experience any schadenfreude from this, but it does make me wonder what the people who went public with their prayers are going to say now.   If you were to make a statistical study of people in danger who were prayed for by others, compared to people in danger who were not prayed for (or maybe those prayed for by the wrong religionists!)... you would probably find that the outcome was no different.

You can't make a study of people who prayed for themselves because you would get the worst kind of confirmation bias: only people who survived a life-threatening event would answer your survey.

Do Christians ever think about why they only hear about people who prayed and were delivered from a life-threatening event or disease?  Don't they realize that the people who prayed and died anyway aren't talking to them?

If they do acknowledge that their prayers weren't answered (as opposed to conveniently forgetting that they prayed), they have a real problem on their hands, as their imaginary Sky Daddy was supposed to make everything all right.  Here are some website explanations for why prayer doesn't work:

You're not a good enough person.

Your prayers aren't good enough

You don't want the right things

You didn't tell God how great he is first

God did answer the prayer by doing what's best for you, not what you want


This last one is the default for a lot of the Christians I've met.  God knows what's best.  His ways are mysterious.  One door closes, another door opens...   blah blah blah 

All these excuses have one thing in common:  blaming the person doing the praying.  God is all-powerful but apparently you have the power to change his mind if you do everything just so.  If God doesn't answer a prayer it's because there's something wrong with you, not with the Somali pirates.

Someone at work the other day said she met the leader of a local atheist group and "she was one of the happiest people I've ever met."  I tried to explain how liberating atheism is, but I don't think her brain got past "you too?"

Liberating, yes.  Sure, being powerless in distressing or dangerous situations is frustrating, uncomfortable, and scary.  But we don't carry any shame for the situation or the outcome.  We don't allow ourselves to be belittled by fairy tale Sky Daddies and their spokespeople who will do everything to put the blame on the believer.  Those of us who were brought up to believe this nonsense are free to put the blame where it belongs: on the person committing the evil act, the cancer ravaging a body, or plate tectonics causing an earthquake.

It doesn't say anything about you that the pirates killed their captives, or that people died in the New Zealand earthquake, or that a four year old dies from cancer.  In the long run, we atheists are in a much better position to recover from horrible events than Christians because we don't hold false hopes of a fairy tale ending or blame ourselves when things don't come out the way we think they should.

We also don't have to spill a lot of ink wondering why things came out the way they did.

Here's a tip, Christians:  if it has taken theologians thousands of years to come up with an explanation, that's a sure sign that the underlying concept is bogus.  The answer to the question of why prayers aren't answered is that prayer is a mindgame and has no influence on the outcome of events.  If it makes you feel good, that's about all you're going to get from it.

"symptoms of being pregnant by a supernatural entity"

I was looking through the search terms that led people to this blog and found this gem:  "symptoms of being pregnant by a supernatural entity."  I have no idea how that phrase led google to this blog, but starting today it will make sense, because it inspired this post.

This is something the Bible should have dwelt on just a bit.  If they want us to believe that Mary didn't just make up a story about getting knocked up by a deity, she should have had some supernatural symptoms.

It also made me think of Rosemary's Baby, the book and the movie about a woman who is impregnated by Satan when he wants to propagate himself.  I read the novel as a teen and I remember that it terrified me so much I didn't want to see the movie.

Then there was the immaculate conception episode of Star Trek, which was rather amusing.  The womb that got appropriated was that of Counselor Troi, and the "supernatural" being was a ball lightning kind of being that wanted to see what it was like to have a body.  The pregnancy lasted just a few days and after the birth Troi's body was completely healed, as if she'd never had a baby.

It's disappointing that the Bible didn't dwell on the pregnancy and birth.  It would have made the whole immaculate conception thing more believable to me.  ... but not to the people of the times.  Virgin birth and gods inseminating human women were well-worn tropes for them.  They would expect anyone claiming to be part god to have this kind of story.  In fact, if it weren't part of the family lore, it would have been added by the prosletyzers to lend credibility to their claims.

...and with so many gods about, not to mention Satan and all the angels, how would we know that the pregnancy was really caused by the god, and not SATAN?????  It's not like there's a DNA test for it.

It comes down again to wanting to believe what your authority figures believe.  Your parents, pastor, teachers, and the writers of the Bible know what they're talking about, right?

God hates "God's Country"

My college years were spent in Wisconsin, which I was informed by some townies is "God's Country."  Since then I have lived in a few other states that claimed to be "God's Country."  In the Northeast the word "country" signified hick music and toothless miners, so they made no such claims.  (I suspect a superiority complex - no need to assign a deity to the best city in the world)

And now 100,000,000 people, mostly in "God's Country" are being tormented by ice, sleet, snow and wind.  God hates the Midwest, obviously.

It's up to the atheists to make that declaration.  Fundy televangelists were quick to blame Katrina on New Orleans' lack of morals, but where is God's wrath when the midwest is attacked by an "act of God?"

If they look hard enough they can find reasons why God would smite the people in his "country." 

I think hubris is reason enough.  Bigotry is a good one. 

I was going to make a list but I live amongst these people.  Suffice it to say, winter sucks, and that's all there is to it.  And New Orleans is in a part of the country that's subject to hurricanes.  And California is prone to earthquakes.  These things aren't "Acts of God" because 1) there is no god and 2) there is no agency to any of this.  Weather just happens.

Alternative Explanations for the Miracles of the Bible

Let's start with the New Testament, since Christians are nuttier about believing the Bible to be historically accurate than Jews.

 

Virgin birth. There are many possibilities here.

1. It's a meme of the religions of the time, and could easily have been attached to the mythology around Jesus after the religion started taking off. This story added credibility to Christian claims, because it's something the people would expect of a deity.
2. Mary, or Joseph, or the family, or the followers, LIED. Not as likely as #1 above, but possible. Getting people to believe it wouldn't be as hard as it would be today.
3. Mistranslation. The first writers/transmitters never said this but it got translated this way. And Catholicism loves it that way so they perpetrated it.

Food and Beverage Miracles.

1. Completely made up.
2. Something unusual happened that wasn't very impressive, so it was exaggerated to be worthy of mythical/miraculous status.
3. Trickery.  The disciples put wine into water barrels, or had a stash of bread and dead fish at the ready. 
4. Numerology.  Any time miraculous numbers are mentioned in the Bible you have to suspect a total dissociation from reality due to possible magic numbers being used to make some point.

 Healing. Really? We don't have to look further than examples of faith healing today to know that they could have been false then but here goes: 

1. Lies. Gotta convince the masses to convert, so some miracle stories are in order. Easy stories to make up. It's not like people in Italy or even Lebanon would have been able to verify something like that.  How many people were named Lazarus?  You would be hard pressed even in a well documented society to figure out which one was named.
2. Fakes. Shills brought out to fool the crowds. How hard would it be to fake a withered hand? Blindness? Lameness?
3. Spontaneous healing, due to the effect of faith on the mind of the believer, not intervention by a deity or a magical power. Or, the person is so swept up in the moment they have momentary improvement. Did anyone follow up on these people a year later? No, of course not.
4. Actual sick people being made to look more healed than they are. The disciples support the lame person in such a way that they seem to be walking, or straighten out the "withered hand" by force.
5. Confirmation bias. Would Jesus' followers really document the many times he was unsuccessful? (assuming any of it is historical)

Miscellaneous points

 

The fig tree. My favorite. Jesus couldn't make the tree bear fruit out of season so he zapped it. Wouldn't making the tree bear fruit have been a much better miracle than setting it on fire? If this is historical at all, what is the time frame? Could it have been a set-up? Could it have been the highest point during a lightning storm?

 

Calming the storm. This sounds a lot like Moses parting the sea, so right there I suspect it's fabricated. If the writers are trying to convince the heathens that Jesus was indeed the heir to the Judaic tradition, having him do something Moses-like would be a good start.  This is probably the easiest thing to make up, and not being able to find witnesses wouldn't prove anything because lack of evidence would just be lack of evidence.  Could a storm suddenly stop on its own? Sure. It happens often enough that a coincidence is possible if there's historical accuracy to this story.  Confirmation bias here, too.  If you tell the sky to shut up often enough, one day it will obey you.

 

Turning water to wine.  This one is just stupid. It's not that hard to switch containers.


If you're going to believe the miraculous claims of one group of bronze-age people without question, you have to believe all of them.  I don't see Christians pointing to the miracles of other religions as evidence that miracles happen, only the ones from their own religion.