God: The Failed Hypothesis (23 page)

Now, it might be argued that God has not chosen to reveal physical facts about nature that can be tested empirically. But surely the God of the monotheisms is believed to reveal moral knowledge. And, that moral knowledge, as we will discuss in chapter 7, is empirically testable. Indeed we will find that the hypothesis of a God who provides moral knowledge is falsified by the observable fact that many of the moral teachings found in scriptures that are supposed revelations are not obeyed by even the most pious faithful.

A God who provides humans with important knowledge that they cannot obtain by material means should have produced testable evidence for his existence by now. He has not. The evidence points to the opposite conclusion. We can say with some confidence that such a God does not exist.

Scripture and Science

The next places we will look for scientific evidence of revelation are in the scriptures. The least ambiguous and most egregious scientific errors in these books can be found in their references to phenomena now studied in the scientific fields of astronomy, cosmology, and biology.

One often hears the claim that
big bang cosmology
confirms what is written in Genesis, thus “proving” the existence of the God of the Bible. However, almost all cultures and religions have their creation myths, and we need to compare these, as well as the scientific facts, with the details presented in the Bible.

With thousands of religions, past and present, we cannot possibly list every creation story. So let us select just a few, which should at least illustrate that the Bible is not the sole source of creation narratives.

An ancient Chinese myth tells us that everything started in chaos. The universe was like a black egg (a black hole?). A god named Pan Gu, wielding an axe, breaks the egg and the heavens begin to expand. The fleas and lice on Pan Gu’s body evolve into humankind.

In the Apache tale, nothing existed in the beginning—no Earth, no sky, no sun, no moon. Out of the darkness a thin disk appeared within which sat a bearded man, the Creator, the One Who Lives Above.

The Tahitian story begins with Taaroa, who just was. He found himself all alone in the void. He calls in every direction and nothing replies, so he changes himself into the universe.

In the Bible and Qur’an, a presumably preexisting God creates the universe in six days. Following the story in Genesis, Earth is created on the first day. Four days later, God creates the sun, moon, and stars.

Now, what does science tell us about the origin of the universe? In recent years, observational cosmology has grown into an astonishingly precise science. The totality of data from a range of telescopes and other instruments, on the ground and in space, now solidly support the so-called big bang model of an expanding universe. In that model, the visible matter found in tens of billions of giant galaxies and in much greater amounts of invisible “dark matter” and “dark energy” emerged from a tiny volume of space some 13.7 billion years ago by current astronomical estimates.

Observations indicate that Earth was not formed until nine billion years after the initiation of the big bang, grossly contradicting the sequence of events presented in Genesis. Furthermore, the Bible seems to imply that the creation happened rather recently—on the order of ten thousand years ago. At that time, scripture says that all the “kinds” of living things were created and since then have remained immutable, in disagreement with evolution. Throughout the Bible, the universe is referred to as a “firmament” that sits above a flat, immovable Earth
²
.

We see little resemblance in Genesis to the picture drawn by contemporary science. All these facts can lead to only one conclusion: the biblical version of creation is dead wrong
³
.

The Chinese myth described above provides an account closer to the scientific one than the Bible’s myth, picturing an expanding universe beginning in complete chaos and suggesting the evolution of life. However, it can hardly be considered an accurate description of the scientific data.

Theists often bring up the fact that a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaître, first proposed the big bang in 1927. That’s true; but Lemaître was an eminent astronomer as well as a priest, and while the notion of a divine creation was undoubtedly part of his thinking, his proposal was based on good science rather than theology. As mentioned in chapter 4, he strongly advised the pope not to make the big bang an infallible teaching of the Church.

Skeptical literature lists a range of other types of scientific errors in scriptures, and places where pronouncements of dubious scientific merit are made, such as pi having the value of three. However, we have no need to discuss these, since biblical language is vague and ambiguous. Apologists can always find ways to make most biblical errors sound less damaging. Certainly we might suppose that God, if he exists, speaks to people in the language they understand. Ancient peoples cannot be expected to have understood the language of modern science or have needed an exact value of pi (except for the builders of great monuments like the pyramids). Still, the argument can be cast in the following terms, which by now should sound familiar: Our observations, in this case our reading of biblical and Qur’anic statements about the natural world, look exactly as you would expect them to look if there was no new knowledge being revealed—just what was the human understanding of the day. That is, they look as if there is no God who speaks to humanity through scriptures or other revelations.

The Jesus Prophecies

It could have been different. The scriptures might have contained revelations that, while incomprehensible to people at the time of the revelation, may have still been recorded as mysterious, esoteric knowledge. That knowledge then might have become less esoteric as science and the other knowledge arts, such as history, developed higher levels of sophistication.

For example, suppose the New Testament somewhere contained the following passage: “Before two millennia shall pass since the birth of our Lord, a man will stand on another world within the firmament and he will smite a tiny orb with his staff such that it will fly from sight
⁴
.” Obviously no mere mortal in Jesus’ day could have anticipated that in two thousand years men would walk on the moon. Nor would he be expected to know anything about golf.

But, we have no risky prediction anywhere in the scriptures that has come true. Of course, preachers have disingenuously told their flocks that many biblical prophecies have been fulfilled.

In
Evidence That Demands a Verdict
⁵
,
written three decades ago, Josh McDowell of the Campus Crusade for Christ claimed that an intellectual basis exists for faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God
⁶
.

McDowell lists sixty-one Old Testament prophecies that he claims precisely foretold the coming of Jesus Christ as the Messiah
⁷
.

For example, consider Prophecy 1 (all these are exact quotations
⁸
):

PROPHECY

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel (Gen. 3:15, Revised Standard Version).

FULFILLMENT

But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law (Gal. 4:4, Revised Standard Version).

I am not sure what the prediction is here; that Jesus was to be born of a woman?

McDowell often repeats himself. In Prophecies 14 and 32 he regards the statements in Luke 2:11, Mathew 22:43-45, Hebrews 1:3, Mark 16:19, and Acts 2:34-35 in which Jesus sits down on the right hand of God as a fulfillment of: “The Lord says to my lord:

‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool’” (Ps. 110:1, Revised Standard Version). McDowell certainly views biblical prophecy as something different than simple scientific prediction. I would not be too far off base to note that Jesus sitting on God’s right hand has not been verified scientifically.

Each of the prophecies listed by McDowell is confirmed in no other place except in the Bible. We have no independent evidence that events actually took place as described—especially the ones happening in heaven. Before making the extraordinary claim that something supernatural occurred, simple common sense tells us that we must rule out the ordinary, far more plausible account that the events are fictional, written so as to conform to biblical prophecies.

For example, Prophecy 55 takes the opening words of one of David’s Psalms, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” (Ps. 22:1a, King James Version) and sees this precisely fulfilled with Jesus’ last words on the cross (Matt. 27:46). Which is the more plausible account: an extraordinary event in which a thousand years earlier David predicted the exact last words of the Messiah (although he does not identify them as such) or a perfectly ordinary one in which Matthew puts these words in Jesus’ mouth when telling the story of the crucifixion? Or, perhaps Jesus really used these words, remembered from the Psalm.

Many of McDowell’s examples have appeared frequently in Christian literature. Consider the prophecy of Jesus’ coming: “But you, O Bethlehem Eph’rathah, who are little among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel whose origin is from old, from ancient days” (Mic. 5:2, Revised Standard Version). We have no reason outside the New Testament to believe that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. History does not support Luke’s Christmas story about a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the Roman world was required to go to their place of origin to be “taxed” (King James Version) or “enrolled” (Revised Standard Version). Surely such a vast under-taking would have been recorded. History does record a census affecting only Judea and not Galilee, but this took place in 6-7 CE, which conflicts with the fact that Jesus was supposedly born in the days of Herod, who died in 4 BCE
⁹
.

Similarly, we have no historical mention of a star lighting up the sky, although spectacular astronomical events such as comets and supernovae were frequently recorded in ancient times. And, surely there would be a record of Herod’s slaughter of innocent children—had that really happened. The Jewish scholars Philo (c. 50) and Josephus (c. 93) described Herod as murderous and killing some family members to keep them from challenging his throne. Yet neither mentions the slaughter of the innocents.

Furthermore, Jesus was never the ruler of Israel. This aspect of the prophecy actually failed. And, he was never called “Immanuel” either, as the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 foretold.

Perhaps one of the most important prophecies of the New Testament stands out like a sore thumb for its repeated appearance in the Gospels and gross failure to be fulfilled. In Matthew 16:28, 23:36, 24:34; Mark 9:1, 13:30; and Luke 9:27, Jesus tells his followers that he will return and establish his kingdom within a generation, before the listeners die. We are still waiting.

Lack of evidence from outside of scripture surrounds the most important tale of the New Testament—Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Christian literature is filled with claims that these events were foretold. But again we have nothing outside of the Gospels that rules out what is the more plausible account: the authors of the Gospels formulated the life and death of Jesus to conform to their conception of the Messiah of the Old Testament.

Many people say they believe because of the many eyewitnesses who said they saw Jesus walking after he was supposed to be dead. However, that testimony is only recorded in the Bible, second hand, and years after the fact. Eyewitness testimony recorded on the spot would still be open to question two thousand years after the fact. Eyewitness testimony recorded decades later is hardly extraordinary evidence.

Furthermore, eyewitness testimony recorded on the spot today is notoriously unreliable
¹⁰
. In a recent decade, sixty-nine convicts were released from prison, seven on death row, based on
DNA
evidence. In most cases, these people were convicted primarily on the basis of eyewitness testimony.

Now, as with the Christmas story, we might easily imagine that independent evidence could have been found. Matthew describes what happened at the death of Jesus: “And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs we opened and many of the bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many” (Matt. 27:51-54, Revised Standard Version). Again, we have no record of these phenomenal events outside scripture. If they really happened as described, Philo, Josephus, or one of the many historians of the time would very likely have mentioned them. The few mentions of “Christus” in the pagan literature, decades after Jesus’ death, do not provide the needed confirmation. They read simply as factual reports on a new cult that was appearing in the empire. Considerable controversy still exists on the validity of various statements taken from the writings of Josephus, which seem to support specifics of the Gospel stories
¹¹
. But, once again, these were written well after Jesus’ death and were not firsthand observations. In short, despite the long list of Jewish and pagan scholars writing at that time
¹²
, there is no record of Jesus being tried by Pontius Pilate and executed—much less rising from the dead.

Christian apologist William Lane Craig cites the empty tomb as evidence for the risen Christ
¹³
. However, the Gospels are inconsistent in their description of this event, as the reader should check for herself. Simply compare the four accounts:

Mark 16:1-8, Matthew 28:1-10, Luke 24:1-11, John 20:1-18.

Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that the story of the empty tomb is accurate, a much simpler explanation exists. Suppose you are on holiday in Paris and decide one morning to visit the tomb of Napoleon. You arise bright and early and find the tomb is empty. Would you conclude that the emperor had risen into heaven? Hardly. You would figure somebody took the body!