Thursday, February 26, 2009
My Review of When Prophecy Fails (Relevant to this Blog)
On oft repeated chestnut in the perpetual debate between Christianity and its non-believers goes something like this: There are three possibilities about Jesus and/or the Apostles or Early Christians. They were either madmen, liars or telling the truth. Each of the former possibilities is then addressed with what might not be terrible arguments and, thus discounted, the third branch of the argument is arrived at as being true. I have never heard the previous two possibilities adequately dismissed, but the real issue with the argument, its real flaccidity, is that it is a false trichotomy. Humans are not either mad, liars or truth tellers - they slide effortlessly between the three states often within the span of single sentence, act or feeling. But most importantly, the argument fails to address the most complicating of factors: madness, lies and truth may manifest in a social group without any single person being obviously responsible for any of them. It is this phenomenon which makes "When Prophecy Fails" most interesting, since it describes the rise and counter-intuitive climax of a real UFO Cult in the Great Lakes area around the 1950s. The purpose of the work was originally scholarly - the authors wished to study whether disconfirmation - a shocking, undeniable reality which invalidates the beliefs of a group of people, can actually increase the fervor with which the believers proselytize others into their belief system, as seems to be the case from several historical examples cited in the introduction (most notably the Millerites). Whether the observations of the authors, who infiltrated the cult by posing as believers, bear out this conclusion is of secondary importance (although the argument is good that they do, so far as these things can be born out). The real meat of this book is the fascinating insight it gives into group madness. We see the cult develop from a band of mystics and Scientologist housewives into a coherent, self deluding movement. For those into this kind of thing, the book also provides insight into the connections between Theosophy, Dianetics/Scientology, the 1950's UFO phenomenon, and the New Age Movement which are also fascinating. I recommend the hell out of this book.
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4 comments:
Many possibilities get ruled out upon inspection. There is no point in trying to find them all, however, I can point out one possibility which you brought up which could not apply to the apostles or to Jesus. What if the apostles believed in the resurrection because they were lied to? Now this is the case you have outlined below. People were apparently led to believe that there were UFO and other supernatural phenomena and yadda yadda yadda. What you cite cannot apply to the apostles because of their proximity to Christ. No one could have credibly lied to them about Jesus resurrection. We're told that they believed that he was certainly dead, and that they hid fearing what would happen to them as his followers. The argument goes, that these men would have to be totally out of their minds to not only cease to hide, but to proclaim in the face of certain death what they thought they knew about Jesus' resurrection, or that they would have willfully lied about it. It is argued that if they were lying about it (for reasons that would probably also make them somewhat crazy) then why would they take the lie to the point of martyrdom? The fallacy comes when people try to apply this to Muslim (or other) martyrs as if the apostles died simply for sincerity of belief. The apostles claimed FIRST HAND, EXPERIENTIAL, EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE (not unseeing faith) of Christ and his resurrection. People might die for dumb causes every day. No good reason can be given for people to die for something that they absolutely know to be false-- unless they are crazy.
The apostles could not have been successfully lied to because of their proximity to and knowledge of Jesus. They could have been crazy, (But then Jesus would have also to have been crazy... Not exactly the popular view)
It is not being proposed that all men are always only liars, lunatics or honest. Certainly Christians must believe that LDS or Islamists have been deceived. This is not one of the categories available to the apostles or to Christ. If Christ were deceived, then he would be deceived by himself, and thus a madman. If the apostles were deceived by Christ, then Christ would be a liar and certainly not to be lauded or propped up as a 'good teacher'; a good teacher does not deceive with a lie of the magnitude, "I Am God." (and almost certainly not with any lies-- if we must we can discuss what a lie is, but I don't think we really need to do we?) One who comes to reality is FORCED to claim that Jesus was most likely liar, lunatic or Lord. This is textbook Occam's Razor. Those who refuse reality resort to questioning Jesus existence. They cannot be made to believe the facts.
My point is not that the Apostles were lied to. This is in fact NOT the case of the UFO Cult in the book (which you should really read, by the way - it is impossible to capture in a few paragraphs the sheer craziness of a group of people). My point is that the apostles, acting together in concert in the face of a crushing defeat (the crucification of their leader) might easily have concocted all sorts of fantasies and justifications to re-affirm their belief in His Divinity.
Two things from the book. At a certain point the lead Prophet of the group (who certainly didn't lie to the members - she did not perceive her prophecies as coming from herself at all and often doubted them) predicted that they would be visited by a flying saucer if they went out to such and such a road at a certain time of day. The group gathered together and drove out to the location where they had been told that the UFO would visit and waited for hours. Obviously no UFO ever showed up, but a passerby did show up at one point and stick around for awhile.
After the group returned home the prophet received a message that the visitor was none other than Jesus Christ! Everyone became ecstatic that Jesus had chosen to visit THEM and everyone immediately told stories about how they KNEW that there was something special about the man who had stopped by the group and they could detect his goodness and divinity. The fact that he had refused food and drink became extremely significant to everyone who had been there. Note the frankly striking similarity this bears to some stories of Jesus after the Resurrection - particularly that people he visits often do not recognize him as Jesus at first. It is very reasonable to me that some disciples met strangers and only subsequently identified them as Jesus upon reflection and delusion with other apostles.
Second story. On the night of the failed prediction a group of youths pretending to be "Spacemen" showed up and harassed the group about their beliefs, eventually telling them that they were there to test them. The members of the Cult all reported being able to tell that they were spacemen, that several of the visitors were identical to the smallest detail (as though they were clones) that they wore special spaceman clothes (with no metal). This was agreed upon by everyone there (who did not subsequently leave the cult). The sang Christmas Carols a few days later and all reported that Spacemen were in the audience with helmets on and flowing robes and so forth. Where details didn't match between people, one person would silently back away from the contradiction and adopt the narrative of the other person. Note that if you asked these people today they would claim to have MATERIAL, EMPIRICAL knowledge of the fact that they were visited by aliens. I am sure some of them would be killed before reneging.
In the process of confronting non-believers members of the cult ALSO dramatized and exaggerated their own persecution.
I can't claim this refutes the Gospel - that would be ridiculous. It does however provide an example of people behaving irrationally for social reasons which indicates that that may have been what was going on after Christ was Crucified.
Finally, I want to point out that many of the teachings of the Prophet were "Good". Lots of Cult Members stopped drinking and smoking, paid off their debts, became responsible and serious about their studies (of cult material). Many people in the cult quit their jobs to prepare for the day of the apocalypse (even those with Children). The fact that some of Jesus' teachings (even most of them) are "good" does not in ANY way rationally discount the possibility that he was insane or a liar. Ms Keech, the head prophet of this cult, was likely both insane and a liar, and many of her teachings were basically good.
Face it, people will lie to the point of martyrdom if they believe something is important. People will commit suicide for much stupider reasons.
The take away lesson from the book is that the primary function of belief for people 99% of the time is social and emotional. Whether the belief is true is of secondary importance.
I just wiki-ed it. Question: Did members of the group claim that they did see flying saucers, or that they did meet with the prophesied flying saucer?
They did not claim to see a flying saucer, no, but they did interpret non-confirming events in a confirmatory manner.
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