Why Kent Hovind's evolution challenge is nonsensical

The infamous young-earth creationist Kent Hovind has issued many times during the past decades a challenge to "evolutionists": He will pay 10 thousand dollars (or whatever sum) to anybody who can give him a proof of the theory of evolution.

Why is this challenge completely nonsensical?

Because he himself is the only and sole self-appointed judge of whether the proof given to him is valid or not. There are no predetermined terms or conditions or anything: He will judge the "validity" of the proof, as it is given to him. Whatever he determines, right there on the fly, will be the final judgment.

The blatant bias of this shouldn't even be necessary to be pointed out. After all, he can just reject any proof given to him, and that's it. He doesn't even need to give any counter-argument. He can just reject the validity of the proof, and he doesn't need to pay. Which, of course, makes this a very easy and safe "challenge" to offer, as there is no danger of ever losing it.

And, indeed, that's exactly what he does. In fact, he has a standard answer to any proof and evidence given to him, no matter what it is, which he almost always uses as a matter of course: "That's not evolution."

Yeah, that's it. "That's not evolution." Because not only is he the only and sole judge of whether the given proof is valid, but he himself is the one outright defining what "evolution" means. Never mind what the scientific definition is. He defines what it means, and thus whether any given proof fits that definition. Never mind that he has never given any definition, that doesn't matter. The definition is whatever he wants it to be, and always something (usually unstated) that rejects the given proof.

So, "that's not evolution." Nothing more needs to be said or argued. Proof invalid, challenge failed. He can then go boast about how nobody has ever been able to give him any proof of evolution.

Christian apologists love to distort Richard Dawkins's point

Many Christian apologists love to erode the credibility of Richard Dawkins by pointing to that one time when he (allegedly) said that even if something genuinely miraculous happened, like the stars in the sky suddenly moving and forming a readable message, he would still not believe in God (no matter what that message says.)

These apologists imply that Dawkins is just stubbornly denying and rejecting all evidence for the existence of God, based on principle rather than rationality, that no evidence could ever convince him because he just rejects all evidence as a matter of principle. They imply that Dawkins himself has openly declared that he will never believe in God and he will reject all evidence of his existence, as a matter of dogma. In other words, essentially putting your fingers in your ears and shouting "la la la, I can't hear you!" Thus, any rational discussion with him is useless and doomed to failure, because of his dogmatic refusal to accept anything.

This is not what Dawkins meant. It's not his point.

What Dawkins meant was that it's not possible to have definitive proof of God's existence. It's not that he will reject all evidence based on principle. It's that it's literally impossible to have such evidence.

And why is that?

Because even if something truly miraculous happened, there's no way to know its origin, its source, what caused it to happen. The only thing we would know is that something very unusual happened, that's it. Could be something natural from within this universe, could be something supernatural from somewhere else, but we have no way of telling which, and especially in the latter case what the actual source was.

Sure, the message in question could claim that it comes from the God of the Bible, but once again, there's no way to corroborate that's true. It could be something else just messing with us and sending us false messages for whatever reason. It could even be some kind of technologically extremely advanced alien race that's doing an experiment or just being evil (after all, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and "any sufficiently advanced alien is indistinguishable from God.") There's no way to know.

That was Dawkins's point. That is what he meant.

And he does make a good point. Even if something unusual happens that we don't know the reason for, or how it's even possible, there simply is no way for us to discern and corroborate where it's coming from, what is causing it to happen.

He is not saying that we should reject all evidence for the existence of God. What he is saying that there cannot exist such evidence because it cannot be corroborated. It's literally impossible. All such evidence would, at most, point to an unknown phenomenon, unknown source, and that's it. An unknown. We can't deduce anything from that.

Short-form list of arguments for and against the historicity of Jesus

I will try to list as many arguments for the historicity of Jesus, often presented by Christian apologists, and brief responses to those arguments. This should be taken more as a "cliffsnotes" type document rather than a comprehensive detailed critique.

"There is an overwhelming consensus among historians and scholars that Jesus of Nazareth was a real existing person. Nobody of any repute doubts this, and it's taken as an almost certainty."

This is a claim only made by (some) Christian apologists and perhaps a couple of atheist scholars, but there is no evidence that it's actually true. I have never seen a comprehensive study or large-scale questionnaire asking the opinion of historians and scholars on this subject. Pretty much all sources cited for this claim are Christian apologists. For all I know, this claim has been completely made up by Christian apologists based on absolutely nothing.

Regardless, even if it were 100% true, this is simply an argument from authority and an argument from popularity. A consensus among scholars does not in itself make something true and factual.

"There is an overwhelming amount of historical and archaeological evidence for the existence of Jesus. There is more evidence for his existence than for most other historic figures."

This is just an outright untruth. In reality there is literally zero contemporary evidence for the existence of Jesus. No contemporary documents that have survived, no artifacts, no statues, no inscriptions, no paintings, no coins, nothing. Not a single piece of contemporary evidence exists. This is very much unlike the evidence that exists for other famous historic figures, like Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great.

Literally the only evidence that exists of Jesus is textual documents that were written many decades after his alleged death, and that's it. These documents were written either by unknown authors, authors who did not meet him personally, Christian authors who were religiously motivated, and non-Christian authors who were born after Jesus's alleged death.

"The texts of the New Testament are a completely valid and credible form of historic documentation supporting the historicity of Jesus."

This would make them the only documents in existence that are accepted as historically accurate regardless of all the supernatural claims made in them. These texts were written by people who were clearly religiously motivated and thus had a strong bias, eroding the credibility of what they wrote. Describing supernatural events, especially ones done by the person they are writing about, does not exactly strengthen the credibility of the text.

"There is plenty of evidence from early non-Christian historians for the existence if Jesus, including that of the historians Josephus and Tacitus."

In reality the amount of non-Christian sources about Jesus is completely abysmal. As mentioned earlier, there is literally zero contemporary evidence (Christian or non-Christian), and the earliest possible non-Christian sources that exist were written well over 60 years after Jesus's alleged death, by people who were born after said death.

Indeed, both Josephus and Tacitus were born after Jesus's alleged death, so they hardly were contemporary to him, and the brief mentions of what Christians believed were written over 60 years after his alleged death. And, indeed, even these mentions are very brief, and were merely repeating what Christians of the time believed. (There is a lot of deception and lying-by-omission among many Christian apologists when they mention Josephus and Tacitus because they very rarely mention when they were born, when they wrote those mentions of Christian beliefs, or what exactly they wrote.)

"The texts of the New Testament were written so early that most people who read them were alive during the life of Jesus and would have objected to the texts if they were not true."

Even the earliest texts of the New Testament were written several decades after Jesus's alleged death, and were distributed among a very small group of people who were essentially cultists. Most of them likely didn't live anywhere near where the alleged events happened, and had no reason to doubt the claims. It's very likely that some people believed the claims while other people dismissed or outright objected to the claims, but this had very little effect on the believers. Even if the doubters were able to convince a few believers, they were not able to convince all of them. Thus, the religious beliefs and texts survived and proliferated, and as more and more time passed, the less possible it was to corroborate the accuracy of the claims.

This isn't anything strange or unusual, as this exact thing happens all the time, even to this day, and even though nowadays we have much more ways to corroborate unusual claims than two thousand years ago.

"Martyrs wouldn't have died for a lie."

Martyrs most definitely would die for a lie, especially since they believed the claims and didn't think of them as lies and falsehoods. There is no reliable evidence that anybody who allegedly met Jesus (most prominently his apostles) was martyred, and later Christians had no reason to think that it was all just a lie not worth dying for.

"The criterion of embarrassment: If the story of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, was made up, they wouldn't have made him into a weak person who was ignominiously murdered by the oppressors."

On the contrary, if you were making up a story about the Jewish Messiah having existed decades prior, it would have been silly to claim that he was victorious and liberated his people from the oppressors (ie. the Romans), because the Romans were still oppressing the Jews, as anybody could see. It would have made a lot more sense to write a story about a suffering Messiah (something that was supported by the scriptures, and one of the accepted interpretations of the Messiah by Jewish scholars of the time) who was martyred by the hand of the Romans.

Unlike these Christian apologists love to imply, the concept of good people being oppressed and killed by bad people in ignominious ways was a common trope in storytelling of the time, and had been for hundreds of years. Many myths and fictitious stories, even much older ones, involved good people suffering at the hand of bad people, without those bad people getting any sort of punishment for it.

(It should also be noted that, as far as I know, this entire concept of "criterion of embarrassment", as some kind of method to determine historic accuracy, was invented by Christian apologists for the only and sole purpose of trying to argue for the historicity of Jesus, and this argument has never been used for any other purpose by any historian or anybody else.)

"There were tens of thousands of eyewitnesses to the events."

The texts of the New Testament claim that there were eyewitnesses. That doesn't make it any more true than any of the other claims made there, such as the supernatural miracles. Notably the New Testament is the only source that claims that such eyewitnesses existed. There is no other credible evidence that tens of thousands of people witnessed Jesus in person (which, in itself, is quite notable, and a somewhat strong argument against the historicity of the man.)

"The New Testament claimed that women were the witnesses of the empty tomb. If the story had been made up, the authors would have used men as witnesses rather than women, who were considered unreliable."

This is in the same league as the "criterion of embarrassment": Making claims about writing tropes of the time that are simply not true. There are even older pieces of myth and fiction were women play very important roles, and are believed and taken seriously. There is no reason to think that a made-up story about Jesus wouldn't have used women as eyewitnesses. The argument is especially weak given the fact that the same story later has Jesus appear to several groups of people that included many men, including the apostles themselves. The "Jesus has risen from the dead" aspect of the story is not solely reliant on the alleged word of some women.

Why the "criterion of embarrassment" is an invalid argument for the historicity of Jesus

When the question of whether Jesus of Nazareth actually existed comes up, as a real person who the writings of the New Testament are based on, quite often Christian apologists and scholars will present the argument of the "criterion of embarrassment": If someone had just made up the story of Jesus, the promised Messiah of the Jewish people, prophesied in the Jewish scriptures, who would come to liberate his people from their oppression, then surely such a person would not have made this savior Messiah a weak figure who not only was unable to liberate anybody, but moreover was ignominiously killed by the very people who were oppressing the Jewish, executed in the most ignominious and degrading manner like a common criminal? What kind of Savior Messiah is that? Someone who completely failed in his prophesied mission and got executed in the most embarrassing manner by their enemies? Certainly nobody would invent such an embarrassing story about the Messiah. The only credible alternative is that the story is based on true events, because nobody would invent such a disappointing outcome and such a weak "Messiah"if it didn't actually happen.

The problem is, that argument does not hold water in the least.

As far as I know, the entire concept of the "criterion of embarrassment" was actually invented by Christian apologists for the explicit purpose of trying to defend the historicity of Jesus. This "criterion" had never been used to argue for the existence of any other person and, also as far as I know, it has never been used to defend the existence of anybody else, ever. Jesus of Nazareth is the only allegedly historical figure for whom this argument has ever been used. It was invented to defend his existence, and has never been used for anything else.

Of course that in itself doesn't make it an invalid argument. However, it's an interesting thing to point out.

There are other reasons why the argument is very weak.

For starters, if someone had made up a story, in that time period, about a victorious Messiah who came and liberated his people, crushing the oppressors and leading his people to freedom and prosperity... well, who would have believed such a story?

Everybody, especially Jews, living in Judea and all surrounding areas would have seen and experienced with their own personal lives that that hadn't happened: Nobody had liberated them from the oppression of the Romans. Nobody had conquered and defeated the Romans. The Romans were still well in power, and nobody had done anything to them, and the Jewish people were still as oppressed as they had ever been.

Whoever wrote the story that eventually became the Gospels (as directly one of them or, possibly, as the original source that served as the inspiration for the four Gospels), assuming that he made up the entire story, was probably not an idiot. He would have known that if he made up a story about a victorious conquering Messiah, then nobody would believe it because they would see with their own eyes and their own experiences that it wasn't true.

However, write a story about a suffering Messiah, a Messiah who came to Earth to save his people spiritually and who ended up as a martyr, in events that happened over half a century prior in some city hundreds of miles away... and suddenly it becomes a lot more believable. Back then news didn't travel fast, nor were historic events well known and preserved. Almost nobody would have known what happened half a century, or even a century prior, in some city somewhere, hundreds of miles away. The story of a Messiah who was martyred by the Romans was believable. It helps that this also has support in the Jewish scriptures, and one common interpretation at the time was indeed that of a suffering Messiah rather than a conquering one. (Isaiah 53:5 is the most famous of these passages.)

There is an additional possible reason to write a story about a martyred Messiah: It is possible that the original Gospel text was written with the intent to rally the Jewish people to raise up against the Romans. Resentment towards the Romans was a quite common sentiment among many Jews living in that region at the time, and there had been several rebellions recorded in history (and probably a lot more smaller ones, records of which have not survived to this day.) Thus, it would have made a lot of sense to tell a story about a Jewish Messiah who came to save his people and was then ignominiously executed by the Romans, even though he was completely innocent of any crimes. What better way to make people angry at the Romans?

The idea of the "criterion of embarrassment" also kind of implies that fictitious martyr stories were somehow non-existent or at least uncommon back in those days, and thus it wouldn't have made sense for someone to make up a fictitious heroic figure who nevertheless becomes a martyr and is killed by the enemy, without any repercussions to said enemy.

This is, of course, very far from the truth. Heroic figures suffering defeat, making mistakes, being embarrassed and even killed by their enemies was a quite common narrative trope, and had been for centuries and centuries. Even several of the revered prophets of the Old Testament died as martyrs at the hands of their enemies.

The notion of pious innocent prophets of God being ignominiously tortured and killed by their evil enemies was a very common story. It was, in fact, more common than prophets of God who came and conquered and destroyed their enemies (with perhaps only Moses being the most prominent example of this.)

The "criterion of embarrassment" just does not hold any water on scrutiny. It is, possibly, one of the weakest possible arguments for the historicity of Jesus. Personally, I find it astonishing that even some atheists and skeptics consider it a valid credible argument, and that it is being seriously presented in many secular sources.

Did a historic Jesus exist? Addendum

I have previously written two articles about my views on the credibility of the existence and historicity of Jesus of Nazareth:

• A critical view on the historicity of Jesus
  
• Did a historic Jesus exist?

In this article I would like to address some of the views by skeptics and atheists on the subject in question.

You see, I have seen many outspoken atheist activists eg. on YouTube state that the historicity of Jesus is at the same level as those of, for example, Julius Caesar, Plato and Alexander the Great. They consider the historicity of Jesus an almost indisputable fact, and the only question is how many of the claims written about him are actually true.

This genuinely baffles me. I don't have an objection to them believing that Jesus of Nazareth, who the Christian scriptures talk about, actually existed as a real person. I do have an objection, however, to elevating this certainty to the same level as those other historic figures such as Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great. There might be some arguments to be made for the historicity of Jesus, but the level of evidence for this in no way, shape or form comes even close to that of the historicity of those other people.

There is an overwhelming amount of surviving physical evidence for the existence of Julius Caesar. And this is not evidence from centuries after his death, but contemporary evidence. Statues, coins, monuments, inscriptions in those monuments, contemporary written accounts by numerous contemporary authors, both Roman and foreign. All of which can be traced with a high degree of reliability to being contemporary, ie. created when Julius Caesar was alive. We even have surviving texts written by Julius Caesar himself.

The same is true for Alexander the Great: There is overwhelming contemporary evidence of his existence that has survived to this day, including coins, buildings, monuments and contemporary writings by domestic and foreign authors.

In contrast, there is no contemporary evidence of any kind for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. None. No statues, no coins, no monuments, no works by the man himself, no writings about him, either Christian or non-Christian. There are no Roman documents about the man they allegedly executed (at least none that has survived), nor even mention or references to any such documents anywhere. There are no contemporary accounts of his life or teachings, written during his lifetime.

The earliest sources that we have that mention him in any way, shape or form are either the original source for the Gospels (as it's commonly accepted that either none or at most one of the Gospels is original, the others are just rewritings of the same story) or the letters of Paul, both of which were written many decades after the alleged death of the man. The latter are more reliable because they can be traced better to a particular author, but they were written by a person who, by his own words, never met Jesus, never even saw him in person, and only had second-hand accounts (if even that). Non-Christian sources are much more recent than that, written about a century later by authors who were born after the alleged death of Jesus.

The amount of contemporary evidence for the existence of Jesus is absolutely abysmal. As in none. This is quite in contrast to the amount of physical contemporary evidence for eg. Julius Caesar.

It is, thus, incomprehensible why so many skeptics consider the certainty for the historicity of Jesus to be on the same level as that of those other people.

Jesus might have actually been a real person, but the quality of evidence for this is in no way even close to be reliable, not even close to that of Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great.

Is religion useful to humanity?

A type of debate is sometimes held between atheist skeptics, sometimes between skeptics and religious people (usually Christians), whether religion is good for humanity or not, whether it has done more bad or more good for humanity, whether humanity would have been better without any religion.

In this discussion (especially when it's held among skeptics) the premise is that religious beliefs are false, incorrect and just fantasy. That's not the debate at hand. The debate is whether this fantasy has done more good or bad for humanity, and whether it has any redeeming qualities and if it would be better if it didn't exist at all.

In order to get a better perspective on this question, one has to remember that humans are a highly social species. We have survived and thrived for millions of years by forming groups, tribes and societies that cooperate and work together. It's very hard for humans to survive on their own, and our best chances of survival have always been to live and work together in moderately-sized groups and societies.

Such a society has a much higher chance of succeeding and thriving when all of its members cooperate and work together, agree with each other, and there's very minimal disagreement, in-fighting and schisms. It, thus, helps greatly if the members of the society share a common culture, customs, traditions, beliefs, opinions. It helps when there's an underlying unifying culture and belief system which the majority of people agree on, and thus minimizes the amount of in-fighting and schisms.

From an evolutionary perspective humans have a propensity to religious and quasi-religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are objectively and demonstrably false. This may well stem from an animistic instinct, ie. attributing sentience to unexplained natural phenomena. (The core reason for this is that if you assume that a phenomenon is caused by some kind of living being, such as a predatory animal, that will induce you to be careful and eg. flee, rather than investigate and possibly get killed by the predator.)

If unknown mysterious phenomena, such as wind, thunder, the source of rain, the nature of the Sun and so on and so forth are instinctively attributed to live sentient beings, perhaps some kind of supernatural beings, it's very natural and easy for this to be taken to its natural conclusion and attribute them to some kind of superior supernatural beings that are higher in power and abilities than humans themselves (after all, humans cannot create thunderstorms, rain, sunlight and so on).

And since people living in a primitive society very easily agree with each other (because fundamental disagreements are ultimately detrimental to the very survival of the society, meaning that societies with a high degree of disagreement and distrust got naturally selected out), it's very easy and natural for religion to arise in such societies.

And it may well be that such religions have been during the millions of years that humans have been able to communicate with each other, a driving force behind cooperation and camaraderie among the members of tribes and societies. It gives the people a common set of beliefs, customs and traditions. It gives them a sense of community and belonging. When everybody engages in the same rituals and customs, it joins people together and gives them a feeling of companionship, and a desire to work together and help each other.

So it may well be that, no matter how false religious beliefs may be, it has overall helped humanity survive and thrive, and that without religious beliefs humanity would not be even nearly as advanced, or even exist, today.

Of course religion has been used innumerable times for absolutely heinous atrocities. But what hasn't? Pretty much every single societal phenomenon, every single belief system, has been abused for atrocities, to oppress people, to destroy other people seen as "enemies".

Ray Comfort is a pathological liar

Ray Comfort is one of the most famous (or, should I say, infamous) Christian preachers and proselytizers who loves to interact with skeptics and atheists, and who also loves to present such outlandish and ridiculous arguments and assertions that he has been pretty much a celebrity among skeptics and atheists for the last two or three decades (if not even longer. Indeed, his proselytizing and, especially, his completely outlandish and silly laughable arguments go back to the 1990's, if not even earlier.)

One of the most common personality traits that Comfort is very often accused of by skeptics is that he's a pathological liar. Is this just throwing random insults at a good honest humble Christian, or is there some veracity to this claim?

Honesty is one of the virtues that the vast majority if not all Christians, regardless of denomination, agree with, especially when it comes to Christians themselves: Lying and dishonesty is widely considered a sin, and honesty and openness is considered a virtue. There are many Christians who take this so much to heart that they are outright honest to a fault, being almost incapable of telling a lie, even if telling the truth would severely harm them. (It depends a lot on the individual Christian whether they would lie in order to save another person from harm, and it's one of those interesting moral and ethical dilemmas for them. Anyway, this is not here nor there.)

And most certainly if you asked Ray Comfort if he considers lying to be a sin and honesty to be one of the highest virtues that a Christian should aim for, he would wholeheartedly agree. (This can be said for certain because one of his favorite tactics when proselytizing is trying to make the other person to admit that he or she has lied in the past, which according to Comfort is a sin against God.)

Thus, if Ray Comfort himself would exhibit dishonesty, deception and lying, it would show an extraordinary degree of hypocrisy.

Most often when skeptics claim that Comfort is a liar, they often refer to him keeping repeating all the same old tired arguments (especially those against the theory of evolution), over and over, for years and decades, even though he has been explained why those arguments are clearly wrong, and he quite arguably at least at some point has understood the explanations. In other words, even though he knows that his arguments (eg. against evolution) are invalid, because he has been clearly explained the reason, he keeps repeating those same arguments again and again, implying that the arguments are valid, even though he knows they are not.

However, if you follow what Ray Comfort actually does, what he preaches and how acts when he's proselytizing, what kind of arguments and tactics he uses, and what he does when running his ministry (Living Waters), you'll quickly notice that his dishonesty and deception goes well beyond just those arguments against evolution. In fact, you could even give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he keeps repeating those anti-evolution arguments because he doesn't actually understand the answers, and it wouldn't really change the fact that he's a profoundly dishonest person.

Dishonesty is so deeply entrenched in his psyche that he seems unable to do anything that doesn't have deception, dishonesty and trickery attached to it in one way or another.

As seen by his very own videos, when he proselytizes to people on the streets or elsewhere, his fundamental proselytizing tactic almost always entails deception and trickery of some kind: Instead of just being forthcoming and open about what he wants to say, he always wants to trick the listener by leading him or her into some argumentative trap. Most often he tries to make his listeners admit that they have committed some sin, or admit that they don't know this or don't know that, or ask them to explain something very complicated and then confuse them by responding to their overly simplistic answers (you really can't expect random people on the streets to be highly educated and experienced scientists, biologists, etc) with complicated counter-arguments to which the average person can't really come up with a proper answer in those few seconds that they have to answer.

He has made many videos and written many books on, pretty much effectively, "how to trick a random person into agreeing with your arguments" (obviously not with those words, but pretty much in essence that). It's always some kind of trickery, some kind of deception, some kind of laying an argumentative trap instead of being forthcoming and direct from the very start. He has made tons and tons of videos both demonstrating these tricks, as well as instructing others on how to do it. (Most of these argumentative tricks are extremely silly and simplistic, and any skeptic who has even a modicum of experience in conversing with Christian apologists would never fall for them, but the point is that Comfort just loves to use these tricks constantly in order to try to fool random people on the street.)

His dishonesty and deception permeates almost everything he does, no matter how small or mundane. Take for example, this video of his:

What is this? A box full of cash? As you might have guessed, those are just Christian proselytizing booklets with just a cover that looks like money.

The idea is, of course, as silly as it is deceptive: To leave these booklets laying around, fooling random passersby to think that there's a wad of cash there, who will then take it and notice that it's not actually cash, but some booklet, in the hope that the person will then read the proselytizing inside it and be moved by the Holy Spirit and something something.

In the video Comfort just gushes about these, describing how wonderful they are.

He seems completely unaware that it's, once again, showcasing his most fundamental deeply ingrained personality trait: That of dishonesty and deception. Trying to spread his message by tricking people, by lying to people, by deceiving people.

Even in such a small thing he just can't help but to lie and to be deceitful.

And he just doesn't understand his own hypocrisy in all this.