Pastor Ryan Gaffney

Let’s take a break from our broccoli scriptures for a moment and go back to regular apologetics. I want to pick on another silly Meta-debate that occurs regularly in circles where people attempt to speak rationally about Jesus. The claim that “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”

This idea came from Carl Sagan who, I have to say I am an enormous fan of. He is a brilliant man and a passionate and patient teacher of science, so much so that I am willing to completely and totally ignore the fact that he sounds like Kermit the Frog.

His series Cosmos dropped this line, along with other all time showstoppers like “We are made of star stuff” and “If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe”

And like most of the things he says, he is right. Extraordinary do indeed require extraordinary evidence. Specifically, the context in which he spoke about this was with regard to tales of alien encounters. Certainly an interesting claim, and one which would be very significant if true, but with what evidence?

Sagan of course is no friend of religion. (a point of some irony considering his famous series is taken from a common biblical word meaning an ordered and structured world. So it’s hard to accuse his quote from being taken out of context when it is applied to God…. But it totally is.

I mean listen. I haven’t read every Sagan book or watched every Sagan interview, and maybe he did attempt to apply the so called “Sagan Standard” to the question of God personally. I have seen him do similarly irrational things when the topic turned to religion. But to do so would be to cheapen the actual meaning of the phrase enormously.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is the lesson of a spectacular teacher exploring his students to think! and to never stop thinking. It is the word of a man fascinated by UFOs but disciplined enough in his thinking to model for us an approach to that idea which asks more, and searches more.

When it is used in Christian contexts it is used to shut down conversation.

To end thinking.

To insist that the reality I prefer (that God would not exist) is the true and final reality unless you my rhetorical opponent can provide evidence which I consider “extraordinary” because that is what I have decided that your claim is. It’s intellectual laziness, is what it is.

Sagan investigated UFOs he investigated horoscopes, he was familiar with all the evidence that was presented, and he rightfully, sadly, found it lacking. He didn’t conclude that aliens do not exist or that they have not visited. Quite the opposite, he remained “agnostic” on the subject, but fairly weighed the evidence before him and found it light.

So few of us do the same thing for our metaphysical assumptions. So few of us take time to regard and to analyze the cosmological, axiological, historical and philosophical arguments for theism and it’s related ideas.

To illustrate this. Consider the opposite claim. Setting aside any unjustified gag reflexes you hay have taught yourself regarding the burden of proof consider the claim (and yes, is it a claim) that every religion of the world is essentially wrong. That the supernatural itself, does not exist. That there is no mountain all faiths are climbing differently, nor is there one that is climbing the right mountain, but that mountains do not exist.

That’s pretty extraordinary.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Actually i think the claims that atheism makes are really advanced in terms of anthropology and culture in a lot of interesting ways. But it runs counter to everything everyone has believed for pretty well always. So where is the extraordinary evidence of that wonderful idea?

If the extraordinary evidence, is that none of the other people have extraordinary enough evidence of their own ideas… then we are really just having a slap fight aren’t we? We aren’t being rational. We are pretending.

That’s a shame

Because a really good teacher taught us an important phrase about a standard of thinking, which reminds us all to be disciplined in not jumping to easy assumptions or preferred answers, and instead to keep on thinking and streaking and looking for answers to difficult questions and I think it deserves more respect than that. Because it’s true.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”

Juergen Moltmann said that the way to change the world is by playing games.
So I want to talk a bit about the Board Game Renaissance. That is going on in the world right now, and it’s theological importance. A lot of it comes from a new way of thinking about board games, which began in Germany and has since expanded internationally.

American Style board games like Battleship, Risk, and Monopoly, tend to feature militaristic themes, with direct player interaction, player elimination and zero-sum win conditions. This is not only emblematic of certain cultural values, it’s also practically problematic especially in family situations because "Daddy just shot you dead and now you can’t play, you have to sit and watch Daddy and Mommy destroy each other" isn’t fun and doesn’t lead to happy memories.

Monopoly in particular was devised as a thought experiment to teach children how horrible and destructive capitalism is. You are supposed to feel desperate and frustrated, that’s a feature of the game.

German Style board games, by contrast, deal with primarily agricultural and economic themes, avoid player elimination, indirect competition and often cooperation, and victory points (non-zero-sum) The strategy of these games is usually quite a bit deeper, and less dependent upon luck.

The most popular one which you are probably familiar with is Settlers of Catan, By Rio Grande Games

I have a love-hate relationship with Settlers. I love it because it introduced millions of people to German Style games. I hate it because among these games it is one of the worst. The winning strategy is easily discernable after the first game or two and after that it’s boring. With that said, everyone loves it, your family probably will too, so if you are looking for a game, consider grabbing it.
 
I can more recommend more heartily, Ticket to Ride, by Days of Wonder

This one involves building transcontinental railroads (What continent depends on the edition, but the United States edition is really good). Everyone plays until the end, and players strategize over when to claim the best routes, but never attack one another. The strategy for this one is actually really deep despite the rules being simple enough for small children.
Another really good one is Tokaido, By Passport

The story of this one is that all of the players are fellow travelers on the road from Tokyo to Kyoto, and you compete to be the player who enjoys their peaceful journey the most. This involves seeing the most views, eating the best variety of food, and buying impressive collections of souvenirs. Because there are so many opportunities along the Tokaido, it takes a practice game to cement the rules, but once you learn them it is a lot of fun. One of my favorite things about this one is that there are absolutely no dice. You decide how far you move.
Too much kid stuff? Ready for a darker theme? Pandemic, By Z-Man

In this game all the human players work together. There are several diseases that have broken out, and only you, the agents of the WHO can save the world from total destruction. You each have different abilities, and try to save the world "better" than one another, but mostly you just try to prevent the apocalypse. Everybody wins if you cure the diseases, nobody wins if the outbreak exterminates all human life.
One last one just for fun, Fluxx, by local Austin Game studio, Sam Jackson Games

There is almost no strategy possible with this one, because the win conditions can change at any moment. It’s just ridiculous fun. There are theme editions available for whatever your family likes, like Pirates, Oz, or Monty Python. As far as I am aware there is no "Reformed Theology Fluxx" at least not yet