Reason for Faith Festival Q n A Interaction: Resurrection

Tonight I attended a screening of the film Test of Faith, followed by a panel discussion. The event was part of the Reason for Faith festival, a response to the Global Atheist Convention backed by various Christian groups.

After the panel discussion, the audience had an opportunity to ask a question of the panellists. I asked a question which ended up being the most discussed question of the night! My question was responded to, and then I was asked to clarify, then it was discussed again, and finally Jack Scanlan responded to my question again in his closing remarks.

I listen to debates and panel discussions like this regularly, and it is easy to critique the views being expressed from the comfort of my computer, but it is more difficult with a microphone in a room full of people! I keenly await the recording to find out how articulate I was and whether it came out nearly as well as I wanted it to.

My question was asking for Scanlan's thoughts on looking at evidence through a broader lens, and specifically his thoughts on looking at the Resurrection argument accurately, as a Christian might understand it. That was what I was trying to get across. Scanlan is a molecular biology student, and was talking about the Resurrection. He cast the debate as a question of the reliability of historical documents vs the findings of science. His view, if I accurately heard it, was that biology has proven that people do not rise from the dead, and so you would need an unreasonable faith in historical documents to overcome this. On face value this view might appear compelling, but it misses the essence of the Christian claim. What biology tells us is that people don't rise from the dead via natural causes. But here's the issue: Christians aren't making the claim that Jesus was raised from the dead via natural causes. Christians claim that Jesus was raised from the dead by God. So I asked for his thoughts on this.

At first Scanlan fumbled through a response and concluded by saying that he would hope all evidence could be examined neutrally, without having our response impacted by prior beliefs. But this is clearly problematic, primarily because the world just doesn't work like that! Ideas do not exist in a vacuum. If you hear that someone you know has been arrested for a theft, you would be completely surprised....if said person was a well adjusted member of society. If, on the other hand, this person had a violent upbringing, an abusive father, and had a prior record of theft, then you wouldn't be very surprised at hearing about another crime, would you? So the point is this. Background evidence counts. As I wrote about previously, if God exists then miracles are possible. But if, like Graham Oppy, you believe that natural causes are all that exist, then miracles like a resurrection are inconceivably unlikely to you. So it's not as simple as looking at historical evidence on it's own. If you're determining the probability of what happened, you need to look at the big picture and cast your net a little wider. Or at the very least, you need to acknowledge the existence of your own presuppositions and their bearing on your response to the evidence. Scanlan had shown no respect or awareness of this vital issue, hence my question to him.

After clarifying my question (how effectively I'm not sure!) Dr Bruce Yabsley commented about the uniformity of nature. Modern science, going back to Newton, shows that nature is uniform, he said. This puts the sting in the tail of the argument that Resurrections simply do not happen. And this is a fair point. But unfortunatly Dr Yabsley didn't follow up those comments by acknowledging that the resurrection cannot be expected to conform to those regular patterns. If a resurrection did happen, then it happened once and at the command of a God who controls the universe and all the physical laws within it. It is not an event that we should expect would be repeated. The test tubes and telescopes may tell us that in every case ever recorded, Science shows that X, Y or Z happens this way or that way. That's all good and well. But if there is a lawgiver behind those laws then there is no reason why things cannot happen differently on one occasion. So again, the prior philosophical question of whether there is a God will have a direct bearing on how we interpret the historical evidence and the interaction of science with that historical evidence.

In his closing comment, Scanlan said that if there was good evidence for the Resurrection, he'd more easily believe that aliens did it than God. In one sense this response merely supported my argument about the need to understand your own presuppositions! Aliens, if they exist, are presumably natural entities rather than immaterial, supernatural beings, and, if you believe that life on other planets is probable (as Scanlan may or may not), then you might be inclined to believe this. For me, this idea is discounted by the fact that Jesus didn't ever mention "aliens". There is a historical context in which Jesus lived and into which he spoke, such that if there was good evidence, you would need to interpret the good evidence within that context. In short, there is historical evidence that Jesus was a Jew who claimed divinity as the Messiah appointed by God. Thus, if there was good evidence for a resurrection, you'd consider that God might have done it, rather than posulate an entity who has no prior connection with the context or the historical evidence whatsoever.

How NOT to review a book

I love reading, as I've written about before, and I usually review the books I read on Amazon.

Two recent events have raised the issue of how NOT to criticise or review a book. I will use these two examples to illuminate this common error.

The first occurred on facebook. John Dickson wrote an article criticising Andrew Bolt's attempt at Biblical criticism, and then this article was linked on the Public Christianity facebook page. A guy named Dave Singer responded with this gem:


I note that John offers, as usual, NO evidence whatsoever to support the claim that the Gospels are true.

He may as well call Andrew Bolt an idiot for thinking the Phantom Menace contradicts The Empire Strikes Back.

 I responded by pointing out that it's an error to judge an author by a standard that he never intended to meet. John Dickson's purpose wasn't to "provide evidence to support the claim that the Gospels are true", it was to show that the problems raised by Andrew Bolt aren't all that troubling at all. I also referred to Dickson's latest video where he talks about historical reasons to believe that the Resurrection accounts are historically plausible- 1. They're historically very early, 2. The testimony of women and 3. The conviction of knowledge (as opposed to belief) evidenced by the early followers.

A second example occurred on Amazon.com. A review of Christian Smith's The Bible Made Impossible was heavily critical of the book, on the basis that Smith's argument was "hoisted on it's own petard". The author of the review, S.D Parker, berated Smith because Smith apparently criticises the Bible for not being definitive enough, but Smith's own conclusions won't reach definitive agreement either! As I pointed out in response to Parker, Smith never intended for his own conclusions to reach definitive agreement! He clearly states that his views are merely some suggestions to get the discussion started on how to better approach the Bible, and not the final word. Further, Smith's argument was not against the Bible for not being definitive enough, it was against a particular view of the Bible (Biblicism) which implies the Bible should reach definitive agreement when it clearly doesn't! Big difference.

 

 

Smith devotes the second half of the book to arguing that the theology of the Bible does contain ambiguities (Chapter 6) and even the theological conclusions that we can reach are not entirely based on the Bible but are developed with later reflection and discussion (Chapter 7).

 

 

Parker was welcome to argue that Smith's suggestions don't work, but it was a simple error to criticise them for not being capable of reaching definitive conclusions. Smith never said they would! In fact quite the opposite. Not only did Parker misrepresent Smith's argument, but he judged Smith by a standard he never intended to meet.

 

 

It's interesting to note that Parker deleted that review the day after my response. The moral of the story here is that you can only judge a book by whether it sets out to do what it intended to achieve- NOT whether it achieved what YOU want it to achieve.

The Rally for Nothing in Particular

Larry Taunton wonders what an atheist world would really be like.

Christianity, whatever the faults of its adherents, has a rich intellectual tradition that has a comprehensive view of life. It has given rise to the West as we know it. Our laws, arts, governments, and the very framework of our thought find their meaning in Christianity. Take for example the central premise of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal.”

As Indian philosopher and social reformer Vishal Mangalwadi points out, there is nothing self-evidential about the equality of men.

But in comparison what is atheism and what is it's history?

Atheism, by contrast, has no creed, no principles, no philosophy, and can give no guidance. It is but to have a settled disposition on a single question: is there a God?

As my friend the late atheist and journalist Christopher Hitchens conceded, “atheism is nothing in itself.”

That not withstanding, atheism does have a history—a bad history. By conservative estimates, the twentieth century, an experiment in secular governance, witnessed the deaths of more than 100 million people. That is more than all the religious wars in all previous centuries combined.

It gets worse...

Proponents of a society free from religious influence can point to no nation or civilization that was founded upon atheism that we might call even remotely good. The story of those regimes is well documented and may be summarized in a word—murderous.

What they can point to are secular societies that are still running off of their accumulated Christian capital. But beware. When the fumes in that tank are spent, tyranny cannot be far away.

In his farewell address, George Washington offered a sober warning: “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” This he deduced without the benefit of seeing the twentieth century. The eighteenth, it seems, was enough.

So as the rally for nothingness meets to celebrate, well, nothing in particular, reflect for a moment on the world they would give us. One need not imagine it. It has been done.

Larry Taunton, well said.

In a tweet he posted a day before the reason rally, Taunton issued a challenge.

The Reason Rally's stated purpose is to "promote secular values." Other than no God, I challenge atheists to name one of these "values."

As I've discussed before, it is reasonable to wonder whether there is even such thing as "secular values" or whether secularists are just hijacking values that were imported into modern day culture by Christianity and then claiming those values as their own.

It's also clear that many atheists have a rosy view of atheism and secularism, such that they fail to confront potential logical inferences arising from their own views, instead choosing to promote a version of secularism that is more in line with Christian thought. Julian Baggini is one such example. John Dickson's comment in his brilliant essay on religious violence, that I have quoted before, is worth repeating. In fact Dickson himself recently re-tweeted it.

Only one way of life is logically compatible with Christianity; any kind of life is logically compatible with atheism.

Bolt and Dickson on Biblical contradictions and Historical Errors

Conservative political journalist Andrew Bolt ventures onto writing about the Bible and John Dickson responds.

Lewis's Trilemma

C.S Lewis's Trilemma is probably the most famous argument in Christian apologetics.

The argument is thus:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."^[5]

The logic appears sound. It is hard to imagine someone going around claiming to be the Son of God, whilst just being a regular human male, unless they were either 1. totally deluded and suffering from seriously bad mental illness or 2. A complete liar.

But as with most arguments, the value of the argument depends on who it is addressed to and the underlying assumptions that are brought to the table.

The "trilemma" on it's own can only be addressed to people who already accept all of Jesus's teachings as being historical words that the historical Jesus actually spoke. In other words, the argument doesn't address the possibility that Jesus did exist but that he didnt say everything that was attributed to him OR that he didn't exist at all. Before you can use it, you need to either 1. assume or prove that Jesus made his various claims of divinity , or 2. you need to know that your audience already accepts this. Having said that, there are good historical reasons to suggest that Jesus did make claims to divinity- therefore once you've done that groundwork, then the argument may be put to use and could be effective to some degree, to a wider range of people than those who Lewis was originally addressing.

 

Lewis claims that people "often" say that Jesus was just a teacher, but his argument still isn't wholly effective even to that target audience. Many people in that category would have the objection that they simply can't accept any supernatural stuff- and that is why they stick to the moral teachings. I think that kind of objection requires philosophical arguments against naturalism per se, in addition to a historical argument such as the Trilemma. For someone who has a strong naturalist outlook that they bring to bear on the Jesus question, and who believes they have good independent reasons for believing naturalism, it is difficult to imagine them being convinced of Jesus's divinity merely by the Trilemma, even if they already accept the historicity of Jesus's claims to divinity. However in this instance, the Trilemma could form a part of an overall argument or set of arguments.

 

With the above qualifications in place, we can see that the Trilemma can have some value in showing that Christianity is reasonable.

So you want to be a Jesus mythicist?

Here's the guide on how.

Results of a survey on natural theological arguments

Results of a survey on natural theological arguments

Respondents were mostly professional philosophers and philosophy students.

Trends in Religious Epistemology

Ex-Apologist explains some trends in religious epistemology.

Historical examples of religious epistemology:

- Bayesianism and Inference to the Best Explanation

- Epistemic Externalism

Recent Trends:

- The epistemology of disagreement.

- Contextualism/pragmatic encroachment

- Phenomenal conservatism

- The epistemology of testimony

Book Review: Atheism: A Very Short Introduction, by Julian Baggini

Well delivered but incomplete and rosy: 2.5 stars.

Julian Baggini's Very Short Intro to Atheism is written with clarity. He states his views clearly and never leaves the reader in any question as to what he's arguing for. This is worth mentioning because it is actually no small feat. Further than this, Baggini structured the book effectively, both in terms of his big picture flow of the book and secondly by always stating his specific points and concluding each chapter with a summary of the arguments. These characteristics made the book easy to read. Secondly, he does an admirable job of making his subject matter accessible, and so he showed his capability of delivering within the spirit of the Very Short Introduction Series.

Baggini begins (Chapter 1) by explaining what atheism is. He paints atheism as a positive belief, and this sets the scene for the next few chapters as it allows him to justify and explain his atheism before completing the more negative task of arguing why religious belief is mistaken, which he doesn't do until Chapter 6. In Chapter 2, Baggini claims that strong evidence supports atheism but only weak evidence can support theism. He argues that human nature and consciousness are completely biological, and that this strongly supports the naturalist, and therefore atheist, view. He argues that naturalist explanations are incredibly successful and that "The class of unexplained phenomena is unlikely to contain anything that will come to be explained in supernatural terms". This is a wide reaching chapter, as Baggini makes further positive arguments before taking on the claim that atheism is a faith position, and arguing against those who would use Pascal's Wager to justify belief.

In Chapter 3, Baggini starts by arguing for the separation of morality and religion, saying that we shouldn't see them as inextricably linked. He explores three frameworks for understanding Godless morality, and draws insights from them all. Meaning and Purpose is the subject of Chapter 4, and it can be summarised by the statement "Life is what you make it". Chapter 5 sees Baggini trace atheism back to naturalists in the 6th century BCE, and then in it's modern form, from the enlightenment forwards as a wholesale belief system in the marketplace of ideas. In Chapter 6 he turns to the deconstruction of the justification for religious belief, as he considers the merits of arguments for God's existence. In Chapter 7 he concludes by discussing humanism and praising the realism of atheism as a means of facing the world.

So, why only 2.5 stars? It's because Baggini's book is both incomplete and overly rosy. He admits at the start of Chapter 7 the fact that it's inevitable that much will be left out, given the brevity of the book (interestingly, this book is much shorter than many of the others in the VSI series- I just received 8 and this was the shortest). I understand this and so admittedly it must be factored in as I pin Baggini down on my charge of incompleteness.

In the earlier chapters, I found myself frustrated that Baggini didn't even mention any of the best anti naturalist arguments. Given his view that naturalism justifies atheism, this was disappointing. I was also dismayed with his lack of discussion on the point that many religious believers and religious belief systems are completely comfortable with naturalist explanations (and the different, but related point that many religious academics and philosophers of science believe God provides a better justification for the entire scientific enterprise than does naturalism), and thus that there's significant disagreement about whether many of Baggini's points provide much support for atheism at all, let alone strong support. It may be fair for Baggini to claim that space contraints kept him from responding to objections, and that he was simply trying to put forward a brief, summarised, positive case. Nonetheless, he could've easily made his entire discussion more well-rounded by mentioning those obvious objections and why he believes they fail. This would've only taken a small amount of space, yet would've made this book much more effective at it's aim of showing why one should be an atheist.

So, in making this criticism I will focus on the one glaring example where the arguments put forward are unequivocally and definitively incomplete. That is, Chapter 6. He refers to "The Cosmological Argument" when in actual fact there is no such thing- there are three broad forms of cosmological argument that together are given the family name "Cosmological Arguments" only because they are similar in their reference point- the cosmos. Baggini presents the design argument as the "watchmaker" argument given by Paley centuries ago, when scientific findings in the past 50 years have completely revolutionised the discussion on this argument. Now, it is true that most religious believers do not base their faith on natural theology, but nonetheless, since he's presenting and critiquing arguments for God's existence, he is at least obliged to mention the ones that modern Christian apologists and philosophers consider the most persuasive, such as modern renderings of the Kalam and Leibnizian Cosmological arguments or the fine tuning argument. I am aware of his statement in Ch 7 that he didn't want to mention sophisticated defences of theistic belief, but I'm not saying that is necessary. (I suspect he had in made some of Plantinga's philosophically dense ideas such as reformed epistemology). I'm asking him to merely lay out a more forceful argument, instead of laying out an ancient strawman.

The second criticism was that he falls prey to the very thing he shows awareness of in the introduction, by painting an overly rosy picture of atheism. Some of the ideas perpetuated by the figures who have paved the way for modern day atheism- Nietzsche, for example- are darker than the picture of atheism that Baggini presents. Atheism is in it's infancy, as Baggini notes, but he pays little attention to dark atheist ideas, or to the fact that atheism has arisen in societies heavily influenced by Christian belief. Baggini would have you believe that atheism is a knight in shining armour, waving the torch of rational thinking alight and ridding us of superstition. But where will atheism really lead people in the future? Caution is required, because as John Dickson observed: Any kind of life is logically compatible with atheism.

Baggini's picture didn't make enough room for the darker side of atheism, and thus he ends up being guilty of the very thing he foresaw in his own introduction. As he admits in Chapter 7, "the atheism described in this book really is a form of humanism". He even says he sees positive atheism and humanism as "coterminous", but the problem is that he simply doesn't give any justification for thinking this! And considering that it's such a huge part of the framework within which he describes and justifies atheism, this is a huge oversight. In other words, given the position of naturalism- nature is all there is- that Baggini subscribes to, many "logical" views of the world and ways of living are possible. And many of them are much bleaker than Baggini's polite and tolerant outlook, so I'm not sure he has a right to commandeer atheism by painting it in such a positive light. Perhaps Baggini is, as we all are, a product of his times.

By balancing out the strong readability and the clarity with which Baggini wrote with the two main criticisms I've levelled at the book, I give it 2.5 stars.

Would We Be Better Off Without Religion?

Notes from.....

Would We Be Better Off Without Religion? The Smith Lecture 2011. 

John Dickson. Available at Koorong Bookstores

(Points emphasised by Dickson, or considered by me to be worthy of note, are bolded. Headings organised as Dickson laid out his talk. Quotes are in italics and are generally paraphrased)

Title of the lecture taken from a debate held in 2008.  

Christianity overwhemingly lost both counts- beginning and end of the night. The motion "we would be better off without religion" won convincingly. Christianity was the focus of the debate. Made Dickson realise: Christians used to be criticised as moralistic, self righteous. Now it is becoming just as popular to label Christians as immoral, evil and poisonous. 9/11 played a part, sociologically.

Only 2 groups consider 9/11 to be a purely religious phenomenon:

-Wahabi Islam

- New Atheists

New Atheism makes Christianity their main target. This has affected people and filtered into the common psyche- it has become a far more popular criticism of religion to claim that religion is evil, poisonous and responsible for violence.

1. How Serious this claim is

The religion causes violence argument has shot from top ten, to the number two reason for rejecting Christianity in recent times.

Dickson recounts story from dinner party- successful, self made businessman was convinced that ‘Christianity started most of the wars of history’.

Hitchens quote- Ethical life can be lived without religion. Corollary- Religion has given people permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel keeper/ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow. (Paraphrase).

Hitchens Quote- Ireland- Killing and Torturing – simply for membership of another confession. (Paraphrase)

This claim is partly right- as a student of history, confronted with primary sources. Christians HAVE done terrible things in the name of Christ .

Protestant problem, not just Catholic:

-          Luther: 1543 The Jews and their lies. Vile document.

-          Calvin: Pressed for someone’s execution for having wrong view of trinity.

Christians have failed to live up to Christ’s standards. Christians should have no problem admitting this, however, because they are the only ones left who do not hold to the view that we are inherently good, through and through.

2. What is wrong or incomplete about the claim

2.1   Retellings of the evils of Christendom frequently involve gross exaggerations.

DB hart. in Atheist Delusions demonstrates how each era retells the story of the previous era in a way which makes itself look really good, by making the past look really bad in comparison. This happened in the 18^th century with popularisation of the term “Dark Ages”. Enlightenment vs Dark Ages. The tale told by enlightened popularisers is “false in every identifiable detail”. The tale of the birth of the modern world and deliverance from the age of faith to the age of reason has "disappeared from respected academic journals and now principally survives at the level of folklore, intellectual journalism and vulgar legend". This is true, no one refers to "Dark Ages" in academic journals and nor should they.

Examples:

-          Spanish Inquisition. Elizabeth Farrelly “Millions” of secular martyrs.  Fact? 350 years, 6000 deaths. Edward Peters.

-          Nth Ireland 30 year conflict. Lets assume this was entirely religious (a debated point), 30 years, 3,500 people dead. Compare to French Revolution- 1793-94 great terror. 3,500. 1 year fighting for secular liberties vs 30 years warring religious parties.

 Any death in the name of Christ or over theological belief is blasphemy, but the question is: How did these become viewed as the pinnacle of the ferocity of Christianity?

2.2   Misses significant point: The violence of Christendom is dwarfed by the bloodshed of non-religious or irreligious conflicts.  

World War 1- 8 mil. World War 2- 35 million. Neither in any way religious conflicts.  How can anyone say most of the wars or deaths in history were caused by Christianity?

20^th century atheist regimes were not improvements on Christendom:

-        Stalin’s project killed 20 million. 6,000 a week. More in a week than the Spanish Inquisition killed in 350 years. Mao- between 10 and 50 million. Pol Pot was responsible for the deaths of 2 million of the 8 million population.  

-         Atheists respond to the claim that atheism leads to bloodshed with two objections. 1. Stalins atheism was a grand ideology, therefore religious in nature. This is an ingenius avoidance strategy. 2. Stalin’s violence was unrelated to his atheism. Hitler was a vegetarian, after all, this does not mean vegetarianism is responsible for the holocaust. This is disinegenous. To say that Stalin’s ardent conviction that religion is false and regressive was unrelated to his systematic eradication of religion people is taking things too fr. Stretching credulity.

Not saying that Atheism necessarily leads to violence. Both Atheism and Christianity can AND have led to violence. Religion or irreligion isn’t the problem. Problem is human heart in possession of a passion unrestrained: A passion for land, wealth or honour, amongst other things.

3.  Jesus's solution to the Problem

Jesus was relentless in his promotion of humble service and his rejection of the use of power. Luke 6, from the Q Document. Accepted front and centre by all mainstream historical Jesus experts- Love your enemies. Do unto others as you would have others do to you.
 
At most, the criticisms of the New Atheists could only prove that Christians haven’t been Christian enough. Christians admit this.

Dismissing Christianity due to a violent history is a bit like dismissing Johanna Sebastian Bach afer hearing a 5 year old attempt one of his Cello pieces. You have to distinguish between the original composition and it’s sometimes poor performance.
 
All historical Jesus experts agree that Jesus preached the love of enemies, hence, he played a beautiful composition. The solution to Christian evil is not less Christianity but more.

Albert Einstein in a letter to German nationalists: “Honour your master Jesus Christ. Not only in word and song but foremost in your deeds”.

Final concern with this issue, an extension of part 2: The arguments given concede nothing of the great good that Christianity has brought into the Western world.

-   Jerusalem Food Roster in the first year of Christianity.

-     Paul’s Ten Year collection in Turkey, for famine ravaged Judea. First recorded international aid project? 

-    Poverty Roll- 1500 ppl fed every day in an era where the Roman church was still illegal, persecuted and being killed. This made it the largest association in Ancient Rome.  

-    In time of great persecution during the first decade of 4^th century, authorities raided a church, expecting to steal it's treasure (like the banking systems found in Pagan temples). In this small church in Cirta (Libya) they actually found: 16 tunics, 82 dresses, 13 mens shoes, 47 womens shoes, storage room for poor, etc etc.

-    Emperior Julian Augustus (AD 331-363) was an opponent of Christianity, was worried they would “take over the world by the stealth of their good deeds”. In a letter to a Pagan priest, he demanded they institute a welfare system imitating the Christians. “Christian deeds have done the most to increase this atheism*”...”Disgraceful that they support not only their own poor but ours as well. All men see that our people lack aid from us”.  *ie: Christianity. Atheism from emperor’s perspective.

-    Human Rights- Canon Lawyers, working through the New Testament and it’s views on the rights of poor and aliens. This is where our modern HR language first developed.

-     Wilberforce- ended slavery out of his Christian evangelical convictions about men being equal and all made in the image of God.

-      Lord Shaftesbury.

-      Martin Luther King.

-      Desmond Tutu Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

-          “Research and philanthropy in Australia” report - Department of Families, community services and indigenous affairs, 2004. Found that the more religious a person is, the more giving they are.

-     According to 2005 data, 18 of the 22 largest charities in Australia by revenue are Christian.

This does not make Christians better people than atheists. Would not even be going down this path and giving this lecture were it not for the claim that they are worse. CS Lewis: Christians are not better than non Christians, they are just better than they would be without their Christianity.

A mass murderer and Mother Theresa can be Christians. But only 1 is logically compatible with Christianity. Only 1 is inspired by Christianity. Only 1 is continuing to sing the tune that Jesus sung.

Movement of 1 vote in the 2008 debate, towards the Christians. A young man told Dickson he’d changed his mind. Think of the one person you know who is really sincere about their faith, and ask if the world would be better off with or without their faith. He thought of his aunty, and the answer persuaded him. Challenge to spectators: Don’t just accept truisms from culture, instead see if it rings true in the lives of those around you. Challenge to Christians: Be the kind of person that changes minds on this question.