Potatoes are fruits
So potatoes are poisonous
There is no shortage of arguments from false premises in the current religious debate. Here’s one from Jonathan Sacks’s The Great Partnership: God, Science & the Search for Meaning. Contrasting the Jewish “right-brain” way of thinking with the Greek “left-brain” approach, Sacks singles out a phrase from Exodus as representing the “most profound difference” between the two ways of thinking. The phrase in question occurs in Exodus 3:14 when God first appears to Moses in the burning bush. When Moses asks God for his name, God replies with the Hebrew phrase, Ehyeh asher ehyeh, which is usually translated into English as “I am who I am”. Sacks rejects this translation and then draws some less than persuasive conclusions from that.87
Sacks: The translation “I am who I am” is wrong. [In fact, as we shall see, it is not wrong - M.A.]
Sacks: The translation “I am who I am” is a direct carry-over from the early Christian translations, ego eimi ho on (Greek) and ego sum qui sum (Latin). M.A.: In fact, the Greek translation, ego eimi ho on, originated from a Jewish, not a Christian, source. It comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint prepared by a group of Jewish scholars about 200 years before the advent of Christianity.88
Sacks instead offers a future tense translation, “I will be what, where, or how I will be.” Sacks adds: “The essential element of the phrase is the dimension omitted by all the early Christian translations, namely the future tense.”89
M.A.: In Modern Hebrew the verb form “ehyeh” is strictly future tense. So, if the word “ehyeh” appeared in a modern text, Sacks’s translation, “I will be” (or “I shall be”) would be its only correct meaning. But Biblical Hebrew is different. It has two main tenses, the Perfect (roughly corresponding to the “past”), called by certain grammarians “qtl”, and the Imperfect (roughly corresponding to the present/future), called by those same grammarians “yqtl”. That means that the Imperfect form of a verb can have either a present or a future meaning. So, in Biblical Hebrew “ehyeh” can mean “I will be”, as Sacks suggests, but it can also mean “I am”.90 The comment by the modern editor of Gesenius’s Hebrew Grammar is relevant here: “[T]he once common designation of the Imperfect as a Future emphasizes only one side of its meaning.”91 The Hebrew Bible is not short of examples of the use of the Imperfect to express a present meaning. Gesenius cites, among others, the much-quoted verse from Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord.” The word translated here by the English present tense “says” is in Hebrew “yomar”, which in Modern Hebrew would have to be translated by the future tense “will say”. In Biblical Hebrew it can be translated like that as well, but it can also be translated as an English present tense verb, “says”, which obviously makes much better sense. Translating it as future tense would make the verse read: “Come now, and let us reason together, the Lord will say.” This makes no sense at all. How can Isaiah know what God will say in the future? Isaiah is conveying to the people what God is saying now, not what God will say in the future.
Why did the Septuagint choose to translate “ehyeh” as “I am” rather than “I will be”? Both are correct. The reason why the Septuagint translators chose to render the phrase in the present rather than in the future tense was presumably that the phrase was God’s name, not his political manifesto, and, though “I am who I am“ may seem an odd name, “I will be what I will be” is even odder.
It is worth noting in addition that Hebrew (both Biblical and Modern) also has another way of expressing the present tense, and that is by means of a Participle. So, “I know” becomes “ani yodeah”, which literally means “I knowing”; and “he walks” becomes “hu holech”, which literally means “he walking”. But this construction cannot be used in the case of the verb “to be”, which does not have a Participial form. Instead, Hebrew uses the Tarzan approach. So, if you want to say “I am Tarzan, you are Jane”, Hebrew says, “I Tarzan, you Jane”. But how do you say “I am”, without anything after it? The only way to say that in Biblical Hebrew is “ehyeh”. To sum up, therefore, “ehyeh asher ehyeh” can mean either “I will be what I will be” or “I am who I am”, and the Septuagint Jewish translators, 200 years before the time of Jesus, chose the latter more sensible version.
Conclusion
From his two erroneous premises — (a) the attribution of the present-tense translation to Christian translators, and (b) the rejection of that translation as wrong — Sacks then derives an unsupported conclusion: that, by contrast with the “left-brain” Greek-inspired “God of pure being” represented by the present-tense “I am who I am”, the future-tense translation, “I will be what I will be”, represents the “right-brain” Jewish belief “that the universe was created in love by the God of love who asks us to create in love”, which Sacks describes as “the noblest hypothesis ever to have lifted the human mind”.92 Besides the fact that the two premises on which this is all based are incorrect, the identification of Jewish thinking with the right brain is in itself a highly dubious proposition. How can the literal-minded rabbinical rules of Jewish conduct coupled with the intolerance shown to other Jewish groups possibly be the product of people-oriented, holistic right-brain thinking? See Chapter 5 for more on this.
Shaving with Occam’s Razor
Professor Richard Swinburne, a leading Christian apologist who has attempted to prove the existence of the Christian God by means of logical argument, falls foul of his own principle that “simplicity is evidence for truth”, a version of the rule of Occam’s Razor.
Swinburne claims that belief in God is the best explanation because it is the simplest. But by “God” Swinburne means the personal God of Christianity, and belief in that God is far from simple. By contrast, belief in an impersonal God is simple, but Swinburne doesn’t even mention this type of belief, deism, which is very different from the theism of conventional organised religion. (For more on the two types of Gods see Chapter 3.)
Occam’s (or Ockham’s) Razor is not a fallacy but a guiding rule of logic that, where there are a number of competing explanations, all other things being equal, the simplest explanation should be chosen. It is closely related to the doctrine of Ontological Parsimony: “A rule of thumb which obliges us to favor theories or hypotheses that make the fewest unwarranted, or ad hoc, assumptions about the data from which they are derived.”93 Sir Karl Popper made the further point that a simple theory was more easily testable, by being more easily falsifiable, than a more complex theory that explained the data equally well.
Professor Richard Swinburne of Oxford identifies three main theories for the origin of the universe, which he defines as follows:94
“Materialism” — an “inanimate explanation” of the origin of the universe, in which all material events are caused by physical events, so that everything is predetermined and human beings lack free will!
“Humanism” — Swinburne says very little about this second alternative, and it’s not easy to tell exactly what he means by it, but he appears to see it as some sort of combination of atheism with human free will.
“Theism” — The belief that the universe was created by a personal God.
Swinburne argues that theism is the simplest of these three explanations and is therefore the best. Monotheistic theism, or belief in one personal God, is obviously simpler than polytheism, or belief in many personal gods. But, according to Swinburne, theism is also simpler than either Materialism or Humanism. Materialism is highly complex, says Swinburne, because it depends on “the powers and liabilities of an immense (possibly infinite) number of material objects”, each made up of atoms, which are made up of electrons and protons, some of which are in turn made up of quarks and possibly sub-quarks. And Humanism, according to Swinburne, is even more complex. By contrast, maintains Swinburne, theism is simple. Here’s Swinburne: “There could in this respect be no simpler explanation than one which postulated only one cause”
(emphasis Swinburne’s).95
Deism vs. Theism
But, is theism, or belief in Swinburne’s God, really a simple solution? In fact, it’s nothing of the kind — because it soon becomes apparent that Swinburne’s God comes with a lot of baggage. He’s the standard Christian personal God who, in Swinburne’s phrase, is “infinitely powerful, knowledgeable and free”. Far from being a simple solution, belief in a personal God inevitably brings with it a number of thorny problems such as the question of miracles, the afterlife and why God allows suffering. Belief in a specifically Christian God necessarily raises even more questions, including the Trinity, salvation and the status of Jesus as the Christ.
But theism is not the only possible type of belief in a single God. Besides theism there is also deism, or belief in an impersonal God, a being of vast intelligence who designed the universe but is not involved in the day-to-day affairs of the world and who is therefore not responsive to prayer and not concerned with the question of evil and does not dole out reward or punishment.
Swinburne’s claim to be applying Occam’s Razor rings rather hollow. Occam’s Razor is not used unless one picks the simplest of all viable competing explanations. By completely ignoring the possibility of an impersonal God, Swinburne inevitably ends up selecting the personal Christian God — which was his starting point in any case. So, Swinburne is also guilty of circular reasoning.
Moving the Goalposts
Moving the goalposts essentially entails redefining objectives and giving oneself an unfair advantage. The mathematician and Christian apologist Professor John Lennox may be seen to have moved the goalposts by narrowing the definition of religious intolerance to the point of insignificance.
In Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are Missing the Target (2011) John Lennox takes issue with those who blame monotheism, and particularly Christianity, for intolerance. He singles out for attack this observation by the German philosopher and theologian Klaus Müller written in 2006: “The thesis that there is a connection between monotheism and intolerance has been for a long time regarded as common sense even in prominent philosophical textbooks.” Lennox rejects this out of hand: “This thesis does not stand up to serious scrutiny.”96
Lennox goes on: “The question is simply this: Is the ‘church militant’ the ‘oldest and greatest criminal organization in the world’? It is quite striking, for instance, to learn that, from 1540 to the middle of the eighteenth century, the Spanish Inquisition was responsible for 827 executions, and the Roman Inquisition for 93. Of course, there is no excuse even for one execution for a person’s faith in God; but… the crimes of secular philosophies of the so-called enlightened twentieth century are far greater than the crimes of the Inquisition.”97
Lennox’s source for these figures is the German Catholic theologian and church historian Arnold Angenendt. In fact, however, the number of executions for which the Inquisition was responsible is notoriously difficult to estimate and is the subject of much debate. But even if Angenendt’s remarkably low figures are correct, Lennox is still guilty of several fallacies:
The dates chosen by Angenendt are revealing, as the period of greatest activity of the Spanish Inquisition was prior to 1540.
No mention is made of the export of the Spanish Inquisition to the Spanish Netherlands, where it is estimated that “at least 1,300 persons were executed for heresy between 1523 and 1566” — a period of only 43 years, not including the period of greatest repression under the Duke of Alba, which only began in 1566.98
It is meaningless to compare the deaths for which the Inquisition alone was responsible with the mass murders perpetrated by Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia and then to label these latter murders as the crimes of “secular philosophies”.99 “Conversion” to Nazism would not have spared any of the victims of the Holocaust!
Even if the number of deaths for which the Inquisition was responsible was as low as Lennox suggests, that has no direct bearing on the degree of the Church’s tolerance or intolerance. Executions and murders are of course the most extreme manifestation of intolerance, but it is still possible for a religion or a sect to have a high level of intolerance without killing anybody.
As Lennox has (obviously!) not read this book, he would not be familiar with the important distinction between communal religions and creed religions. Christianity is a creed religion, as is Islam. As I show in Chapter 4, creed religions tend to be intolerant. The reason for this is not hard to find. A creed religion is centred on a belief or set of beliefs, which each creed religion regards as embodying “The Truth” and acceptance of which is regarded as the key to salvation. As each creed religion, denomination or sect believes that acceptance of its particular creed is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for achieving salvation, creed religions tend to display a high degree of missionary zeal in proselytising and recruiting new converts. New converts are welcomed with open arms, while those who reject the blandishments of the missionaries are condemned as lost souls and generally inferior beings. It is for these reasons that those who are not inside the magic circle of the creed are often discriminated against.
Discrimination can take various forms falling well short of murder or even of persecution:
Purely religious discrimination, as in the non-recognition of baptism by some Christian denominations of certain other denominations, whose members are therefore treated as inferior.
The most bizarre example of this kind of discrimination is the Mormon practice of “proxy baptism” of the dead. The purpose of this is “to allow the church’s faithful to have their ancestors baptized into their faith so they may be united in the afterlife”.100 However, the practice has been extended to include any dead non-Mormon considered worthy of this “honour”, including Ann Frank, the Jewish holocaust victim who clearly had no interest in converting to Christianity of any kind, let alone Mormonism. The Roman Catholic Church has taken strong exception to this “erroneous practice”, and, in an effort to block such posthumous baptisms “dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons’ Genealogical Society of Utah.”101
Political discrimination, where a dominant religion or denomination exercises power at the expense of others, as in Iran since 1979.
Economic discrimination, where members of certain religions or denominations are excluded from property ownership or other economic activities.
Social discrimination, as in the exclusion of Catholics and Jews from membership of a number of gentlemen’s clubs and country clubs in Britain and the US until the mid-twentieth century. It is against this background that Groucho Marx’s famous remark must be understood: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.” John F. Kennedy’s parents, having been blackballed by the “WASP” Everglades Club in Palm Beach, had to join the Jewish country club in order to play golf.102
Educational discrimination, like the exclusion from academic appointments at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge until 1871 of anyone who was not a communicating member of the Church of England.
It is clear therefore that creed religions have an intrinsic tendency to be discriminatory, but what does monotheism have to do with that? — because it may be recalled, as quoted above, that Klaus Müller attributed intolerance to monotheism, thus obviously including Judaism, which is essentially a communal rather than a creed religion.
Is Judaism intolerant?
Is Judaism intolerant? Orthodox Judaism is undoubtedly intolerant of other Jewish denominations. But the intolerance displayed by orthodox Judaism is not because it is monotheistic. Judaism started out as a communal religion and as such was not intolerant. Just as creed religions tend naturally to be intolerant, so the natural tendency for communal religions is to be tolerant. The reason for this is that, unlike creed religions, membership of a communal religion depends on, and is an integral part of, membership of a community, a nation or a society. Communal religions treat relig
ion as an inherent part of a person’s identity and not as a separate or severable part of that identity. Communal religions do not seek or even encourage conversion to their religion, because a convert would have to become a member of their community in order to be considered a member of the religion. Communal religions are therefore exclusive in this sense, but by the same token tolerant, because they recognise that those who are not members of their community will naturally have their own religion. (For more on this see Chapter 4.)
When it was a purely communal religion, which it was from its inception right up to the twentieth century, Judaism was unwelcoming to prospective converts but at the same time tolerant of all other religions. So it was exclusive as regards non-Jews, but inclusive in regard to Jews. This inclusiveness is reflected in Israel’s Law of Return, which allows all Jews to live in Israel and become Israeli citizens. However, in the second half of the twentieth century orthodox Judaism took on some features of a creed religion and turned those features into a religious “test”. It was this move of Judaism from a purely communal religion to a hybrid between a communal and a creed religion that resulted in intolerance, though this intolerance was directed towards other Jewish denominations rather than to non-Jewish religions.
Yazidis
The Yazidi religion of the Kurds of northern Iraq is a good example of a communal religion which is monotheistic but not intolerant. However, the Yazidis have themselves recently been the victims of extreme persecution, including an estimated 7,000 forced conversions and some murders, at the hands of the self-styled “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL or ISIS), a group claiming allegiance to Sunni Islam, a creed religion.103
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