Jonathan Miller’s Rough History of Disbelief PART 3 of 3

(at the 5 min mark of the Jonathan Miller video is Simon Schaffer)

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Interview of Simon Schaffer – part one (of five)

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On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said:

…Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975

and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.

Harry Kroto

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Dr. Harry Kroto is the 1996 Chemistry Nobel Prize Winner and he is seen the photo below:

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There are 3 videos in this series and they have statements by 150 academics and scientists and I hope to respond to all of them. Wikipedia notes Simon Schaffer (born 1 January 1955)^[1] is a professor of the history and philosophy of science at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at University of Cambridge and was until recently editor of The British Journal for the History of Science.

His comments can be found on the 2nd video and the 90th clip in this series. Below the videos you will find his words.

50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)

Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)

A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)

Interview of Simon Schaffer – part 2A

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I grew up at Bellevue Baptist Church under the leadership of our pastor Adrian Rogers and I read many books by the Evangelical Philosopher Francis Schaeffer and have had the opportunity to contact many of the evolutionists or humanistic academics that they have mentioned in their works. Many of these scholars have taken the time to respond back to me in the last 20 years and some of the names  included are  Ernest Mayr (1904-2005), George Wald (1906-1997), Carl Sagan (1934-1996),  Robert Shapiro (1935-2011), Nicolaas Bloembergen (1920-),  Brian Charlesworth (1945-),  Francisco J. Ayala (1934-) Elliott Sober (1948-), Kevin Padian (1951-), Matt Cartmill (1943-) , Milton Fingerman (1928-), John J. Shea (1969-), , Michael A. Crawford (1938-), Paul Kurtz (1925-2012), Sol Gordon (1923-2008), Albert Ellis (1913-2007), Barbara Marie Tabler (1915-1996), Renate Vambery (1916-2005), Archie J. Bahm (1907-1996), Aron S “Gil” Martin ( 1910-1997), Matthew I. Spetter (1921-2012), H. J. Eysenck (1916-1997), Robert L. Erdmann (1929-2006), Mary Morain (1911-1999), Lloyd Morain (1917-2010),  Warren Allen Smith (1921-), Bette Chambers (1930-),  Gordon Stein (1941-1996) , Milton Friedman (1912-2006), John Hospers (1918-2011), Michael Martin (1932-).Harry Kroto (1939-), Marty E. Martin (1928-), Richard Rubenstein (1924-), James Terry McCollum (1936-), Edward O. WIlson (1929-), Lewis Wolpert (1929), Gerald Holton (1922-),  and  Ray T. Cragun (1976-).

17:04  Quote from interview with Alan Macfarlane of Dr. Simon Schaffer: 

Being Jewish, there is the sense of observing things from the side; of being absolutely assimilated without being a member; of thinking from a slightly different perspective and noticing a little more quickly what is being taken for granted; a culture that can be entirely observant in religious terms without having belief; family life absolutely absorbed by the Synagogue and rituals without it ever seeming to have any theological or spiritual aspect; maintaining the culture of Judaism is maintaining the faith; there was an expectation that I was to be the incompetent but clever member of the family; literary and scientific life is seen as indispensable to the culture and the family; strange mixture of pride and resigned tolerance; not a culture that heroizes the intellectual and learning; much humor dwells on the complete uselessness of such persons; but also an acceptance that it is potentially a way up and out of the ghetto; historically Jews were limited by what they could do; could not go into the army etc.; tensions around Zionism; parents were always ambivalent even when the support for Israel by Jewish intellectuals was unquestioned; I went to Israel, to the Hebrew University, in my gap year; eye-opening both in terms of becoming better informed about what was going on in the Middle East but also permanently disillusioned about the Zionist project; Zionists wanted to break a certain stereotype of the Jew and replace it with a more physical, athletic, militant, virile image; the idea of working on a Kibbutz never appealed to me, but not for ideological reasons; many non-Jews did work there in the early seventies, but now all that has gone.

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The obvious problem with Simon Schaffer’s quote is very apparent. Jews were told by Jehovah in the Old Testament that the Messiah would come and they were to follow him. Therefore, maintaining the faith meant actually following the evidence from the Old Testament where it leads to the Messiah and then following him. 

Fulfilled Prophecy as Evidence for the Bible’s Divine Origin

• 2,000 prophecies including some 300 prophecies and implications about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
• There are no prophetic failures.
• While there are both obvious and subtle prophecies, most are very detailed and specific.
• No other religion has specific, repeated, and unfailing fulfillment of predictions many years in advance of contingent events over which the predictor had no control.
• Studies of psychics show only around 8% of their predictions come true and virtually all of these can be attributed to chance and a general knowledge of circumstances.
• Mathematicians have calculated the odds of Jesus fulfilling only 8 of the Messianic prophecies as 1 out of 10¹⁷ (a 1 followed by 17 zeros). This is equivalent to covering the entire state of Texas with silver dollars 2 feet deep, marking one of them, mixing them all up and having a blind-folded person select the marked one at random the first time. For more on this, see What Are The Odds?
• Fulfilled prophecy is powerful evidence that the Bible is divine rather than human in origin.
• Objection: Jesus manipulated events to fulfill prophecy. Answer: (a) Many prophecies were out of his control (ancestry, place of birth, time of death). (b) His miracles confirmed Jesus to be the Messiah. (c) There is no evidence that Jesus was a deceiver. (d) In order to manipulate all the people (including his enemies) and even his disciples to make it appear that he was the Messiah, Jesus would have needed supernatural powers. If he had such powers, he must have been the Messiah he claimed to be.

Examples of Non-Messianic Prophecies

• The Succession of Great World Kingdoms (Daniel 2:37-42). Even negative critics agree that Daniel foretold the governments in order of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.
• Cyrus King of Persia (Isaiah 44:28-45:1). Since Isaiah lived between about 740 and 690 BC and Cyrus did not make his proclamation for Israel to return from exile until about 536 (Ezra 1), there would have been no human way for him to know what Cyrus would be named or what Cyrus would do.
• Israel to Be Returned to Its Land A Second Time (Isaiah 11:11-12). The first time God reclaimed a people was from Egypt through the Exodus; the second time is from the Babylonian Exile (Isaiah 51:9-11).
• The Closing of the Golden Gate (Ezekiel 44:2-3). The Golden Gate is the eastern gate of Jerusalem, through which Christ made his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday before the crucifixion (Matthew 21). Ezekiel predicted its closing and in 1543 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent closed the gate and walled it up, not knowing he was fulfilling prophecy. It remains sealed to this day exactly as the Bible predicted.
• The Destruction of Tyre (Ezekiel 26:3-14). The prophecy was partly fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city and left it in ruins. Alexander the Great later attacked the seemingly impregnable Island of Tyre by taking the stones, dust, and timber from the ruined mainland city to build a causeway to the Island. This prophecy is comparable to saying that Chicago will be destroyed and never rebuilt.
• The Doom of Edom (Petra) (Jeremiah 49:15-17). Given the virtually impregnable nature of the ancient city carved out of rock and protected by a narrow passageway, this was an incredible prediction. Yet, in 636 AD it was conquered by Muslims and today stands deserted but for tourists.
• Flourishing of the Desert in Palestine (Ezekiel 36:33-35). Since before the turn of the twentieth century, Israel has been renovated and Israel’s agriculture is flourishing.
• Destruction of Jerusalem (Mark 13:1-2). Fulfilled literally when the Romans completely destroyed Jerusalem and the temple buildings. According to historian and eyewitness Josephus, some of the stones were 37 feet long, 12 feet high and 18 feet wide. Stones were even pried apart to collect the gold leaf that melted from the roof when the temple was set on fire.

Examples of Messianic Prophecies

• Manuscript Evidence
• Archaeological Evidence
• Prophetic Evidence
• Statistical Evidence

• Introduction to Apologetics
• Summary for Memorization

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Interview of Simon Schaffer – part 2B

Interview of Simon Schaffer – part 3a

Interview of Simon Schaffer – part 3b

Related posts:

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 35 Robert M. Pirsig (Feature on artist Kerry James Marshall)

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