Bad Arguments in the Bible

In The Truth about God, I discussed three kinds of problem in the Bible: its internal inconsistencies, its falsehoods, and its immorality. But bad arguments should perhaps be regarded as a fourth category — smaller than the other three (there aren’t many arguments in scripture), but nevertheless just as problematic. For why would God’s inspired word contain bad logic — especially when the topic is of the highest importance?

Read more »

I'm Debating Dr. James S. Spiegel Twice in April.

Spiegel is an apologist who believes atheists reject his god because of immorality, as argued in his book, The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief. I'm sure Randal Rauser disagrees with him about this. For details on both debates see the posters below:

Read more »

Just When I Thought a Christian Apologist Couldn’t Go Any Lower

“At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency?”

One of intrepid Christian apologists who haunts the Debunking Christianity blog has, in coming to his god’s defense, reached a new low of callousness. In response to my article about the Black Plague in the 14th Century, which killed a third or more of Europe’s population, he wrote:

“Yes, the Black Death and other epidemics throughout recorded history killed a lot of people - perhaps as many as 400 million altogether. That's still only 0.4% of the 108 billion people who have ever lived. Those who died of the plague died relatively quickly - within around four days or so. Compare that to cancer or Alzheimer's, and take your pick.”

Read more »

Happy Secular Easter Bunny!

For the past thirteen years, I've been returning to Spain. Although I've lived many other places for extended periods, Spain is one of my favorite places to reside. So much so that I lease an apartment in the Andalucian, seaside village of Torre De Mar every February, March and April. The timing isn't intentional, but usually I'm here for Semana Santa (Holy Week). No other country does Semana Santa any better than Spain in spite of the fact that it is one of the most secular countries in Europe these days. The grand processions that wind their way through the ancient streets for a week of festivities are impressive and the tradition is not going away any time soon. Semana Santa makes too much money for Spain. So what's the moral of the story according to this atheist who finds herself living everywhere but nowhere?

Read more »

I'll Be Debating Jim Spiegel Twice in April

Disproof of the Christian God, Without a Doubt

The Easy Acceptance of the Very Terrible

When did doubt begin? H. L. Mencken thought that it could have happened at the get-go:

“There must have been skeptics at the ringside when the first priest performed his hocus-pocus, and no doubt, some of them, revolting against its transparent fraudulence, set themselves to find a better way to deal with flood, fire and famine.” (Treatise on the Gods, 1930)

Maybe so, but skeptics were outnumbered. In the ancient world, gods were imagined, invented and worshipped all over the place. With little understanding of causation, it’s no wonder. Earthquakes, volcanoes, thunder and lightening were warnings and curses from higher powers. Good things that happened—the return of spring and vegetation, crops and harvests—were credited to gods in a good mood.

Read more »

A Charming Bible Story… and Its Bad Theology

Mark, Chapter 2: another installment of the fantasy novel

Some gospel episodes are so irresistible that they end up in Bible books for kids, which may be the ultimate test of a story’s suitability for telling “the good news.” Preachers and Sunday School teachers get all the mileage they can from them.

One such story is reported early in Jesus’ preaching career, as events are portrayed in Mark’s gospel. Jesus had already achieved local fame:

“When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them.” (Mark 2:1-2)

Read more »

Wow! The end times are surely here! ;-)

We know this from a recent poll. Happy days are here!

Dustin Lawson on my book "Unapologetic"

Dustin Lawson just wrote me:

"I was looking into a doctorate in philosophy of religion at Ohio State University then I picked up and read your book "Unapologetic." Now, I am reconsidering."

Dustin is a former disciple of Josh McDowell, yes that McDowell, the father of Sean McDowell. ;-)

Famous Jesus Stories Keep Taking Direct Hits

A review of Richard C. Miller’s Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity

Christian theologians have admitted for a long time—despite the anguish of church folks who believe in ‘the gospel truth’—that many Bible stories, always assumed to be history, really aren’t. “Well, you can’t take that literally,” we’re told; farfetched stories are re-categorized as metaphor or symbol, and we’re assured that they convey “deep spiritual truth” —even when they don’t all. But we can admire the ingenuity, although we do wonder if they don’t have better things to do with their time.

But this is a minefield: When you scrap one story, another that you don’t want to scrap falls apart too. I have long argued that this is what happens with the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to heaven. We know that Jesus floating up through the clouds to heaven didn’t happen because heaven isn’t up there. So we can be one hundred per cent certain that the body of newly alive Jesus never left the planet…unless he’s in orbit to this day?

Read more »

Stephen Hawking: A Pioneering Scientist Has Died

He was an atheist, surprise! LINk.

Is Sam Harris Redefining Morality?

As most people reading this probably know, Sam Harris claims that morality is concerned with well-being, and thus that science can, at least in principle, determine which are the correct moral values. However, some critics have claimed that Harris is talking about morality in a non-standard sense, and that as a result his argument doesn’t work.

Whether Harris is redefining morality came up in a recent discussion between Matt Dillahunty and YouTuber Stephen Woodford. (I didn’t watch the whole video, but the question is briefly discussed starting at 1:12:54.)

Read more »

When God Lived Just a Few Miles Up

The never-ending reinvention of God

It’s really not a good idea to ignore your roots, but sometimes people have a vested interest in doing so—at least trying to. Christian theologians have made a mighty effort to overcome their roots, namely, the thought world of the Old and New Testaments.

We can look at puzzling, bizarre items of faith today and see their origins in the old texts. We marvel that the folks in the pews don’t balk at the stuff they’re expected to believe. For example, intense personal theism, the belief that nothing you do or think escapes God’s notice—which is embraced by Christians today as naturally as breathing—derives from ancient assumptions about the location, the proximity of the gods.

Read more »

Before the Big Bang 7: An Eternal Cyclic Universe, CCC revisited & Twist...

Evolution is Now Accepted By More and More Evangelicals! Yesterday's Liberals Are Now Today's Evangelicals, Go Figure!

Evangelicals in the nineteen seventies rejected Karl Barth, women in leadership/teaching roles, the annihilation view of hell, inclusivist salvation, the mythical interpretation of the Genesis creation stories, the late dating of 2nd Isaiah and Daniel, and they especially rejected homosexuality and evolution. Any attempt to reject the historicity of the Garden of Eden story of Adam and Eve's fall into sin (from whence this all began) was rejected outright without a second thought. These liberal views are now being accepted by evangelicals while still calling themselves evangelicals rather than liberals.

Karl W. Gilberson said "The Evolution Wars Are Here to Stay and Heads Will Continue to Roll." Later I'll be sharing books by evangelicals, or former evangelicals, who now embrace evolution. It's something I never expected would happen. This dispute is taking place along with the debate evangelicals are having over homosexuality. It must be fun being an evangelical these days. Not! Evolutionary science and the acceptance of gay marriages is the wave of the future among evangelicals. You can count on it. Gone will be a historical fall into sin by two individuals named Adam (male) and Eve (female)--which never made sense anyway--and the prohibition against homosexuality. There are apparently no limits to their ability to find loopholes in the Bible so they can obfuscate their theology. It will become the new evangelical orthodoxy in the future, as I have predicted. Then amnesia will set in, and future evangelicals will claim true evangelicals always stood for these things! Their amnesia will provide quite the laugh to the rest of us, since we saw it coming. In fact, that's what they've been doing since the inception of their faith when it came to the question of who should be circumcised.

Read more »

Choosing Hell

“God won’t force you into Heaven against your will. If you don’t want him now here, you’re not going to want him in eternity.”
— Frank Turek

The above is an increasingly common idea among Christians: God is merely giving you the freedom to choose. The point, of course, is to avoid the criticism that God punishes nonbelievers by sending them to hell. Instead, God simply let’s some of us spend eternity apart from him. As C. S. Lewis put it, "the gates of hell are locked on the inside."

But as usual, the religious want to have it both ways. For, if hell is simply what the rest of us prefer, then why bother with trying to save our souls? If I’m simply not going to want to be with God, as Turek says, that means I’ll be happier in hell — so why try to convince me to go to heaven instead?

Read more »

People Who Shouldn't Be Trusted As Experts in Religious Matters. Reviewing Mittelberg's Book "Confident Faith" Part 13

Earlier I had offered up Five Things That Disqualify People From Being Experts. Now it's time to mention several indicators showing who shouldn't be trusted as experts in religious matters. These are indicators, some of which are strong indicators, but on their own they don't necessarily disqualify people from being experts in religious matters, although they can. I've categorized them in four groups of indicators: Ignorance, Faulty Reasoning, Faulty Research, and Dishonest or Ulterior Motives. (I'm not going to provide examples in several cases so suggest them as you can.)

Read more »

Dr. John Shook On Pragmatism, Commenting on Mittelberg's Book "Confident Faith"

Dr. Shook is a leading expert on Pragmatism. So I asked him to comment on Mittelberg's inability to distinguish between pragmatism and relativism. He offered one quick helpful comment:

Pragmatism says that anyone finding out what reality is like has to examine all available evidence pro and con, and then go get fresh evidence that tests the current view. Pragmatism is about the scientific method. It looks like relativism to someone who wants final answers right now. Only one pragmatist, William James, ever said that what is useful is true, and he only said that to make a helpful analogy, not explain the theory. If morality, not reality, is the topic, pragmatism is skeptical towards people who think they know the absolute rules for life. Test those rules by applying them in the real world - you will find out you actually know a lot less. Morality should serve what is good for all lives; lives must not be sacrificed for abstract principle.

There. Asking an expert. That was easy!

Five Things That Disqualify People From Being Experts in Religious Matters. Reviewing Mittelberg's Book "Confident Faith" Part 12

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others]. Mittelberg had argued we need authorities since we cannot be experts in everything. So the "question is not if we'll be under authority, but which authorities we'll trust and respond to?" (p. 66) Trust! That's a key point. For my purposes I'm talking about experts with regard to the truth and their level of competence in religious matters (my focus). Are Mark Mittelberg and other conservative Christian apologists to be considered experts we can trust?

In post 10 of this series I made two points. 1) People should not be trusted as experts in religious matters who are not just wrong, but incompetent and even dishonest with the facts. And I provided some evidence in several links that there are some apologists, even top apologists, who are ignorant, incompetent and even dishonest with the facts. They should not be considered experts worthy of our trust. I also argued that 2) Mittelberg's dim view of science should disqualify him as an expert whom we can trust in Religious Matters. One would think science is a bunch of guesswork from what he wrote. Anyone who talks that way about science is not just ignorant but incompetent, and maybe dishonest with the facts. So he's not an expert we can trust, period. Then I gave him an assignment to look at two books of science in hopes he might change his deluded mind. If he's an honest person who truly wants to know the truth, they will change it. [If you object to my harsh language I'm just being honest with the facts. No personal offense should be taken. See Dr. Stephen Law's Five Morals To Guide Atheists and Believers In Our Debates.]

Read more »

A Tale of Two Deathbeds

Pushing the ‘eternal life’ gimmick

Actor Matthew McConaughey provided one of the most cringe-worth moments in recent Academy Awards memory, as he accepted an Oscar in 2014. We atheists are often advised by believers to “keep quiet” about our denial of God, but the pious don’t set such a fine example. McConaughey told his worldwide audience:

“First off [pointing up], I want to thank God, ‘cause that’s who I look up to. He has graced my life with opportunities that I know are not of my hand or any other human hand…when you’ve got God you’ve got friend...”

Well, isn’t that special. The case can be made that millions of humans haven’t been noticed—let alone graced—by God; every day they face crippling poverty and starvation, deadly disease and the brutalities of war. But Lucky Matthew: God has thrown opportunities his way. Somehow Matthew got to be one of the centers of God’s universe.

Read more »

Apologists Aren't Happy With the Internet. Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 11

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others]. I'm doing this online for all to see. I like it. Christian apologists don't.

William Lane Craig picks a question of the week to answer on his Reasonable Faith website. On October 21, 2013 he wrote an answer to a Christian who was in the throes of doubt due to the writings of David G. McAfee. He or she wrote:

Read more »

How Can We Decide Between Experts? Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 10

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others]. Mittelberg had argued we need authorities since we cannot be experts in everything. So the "question is not if we'll be under authority, but which authorities we'll trust and respond to?" (p. 66) When some red flags go up we need to consider second opinions and better authorities. Trust! That is a key point. Who ya gonna trust?

I'm talking about experts with regard to the truth and their level of competence. What are we to do when experts disagree? How can we non-experts choose between experts? Do we have to be experts to choose between experts? There is a whole lot of literature to sift through on these questions.

Read more »

Are There Any Real Ex-Christians?

[The above question came up in the comments section today. The following, adapted from one of my old blog posts, looks at Eric Hovind's use of it in debates with ex-believers.]

Eric Hovind uses the “you were never a real Christian” strategy to great effect, as can be seen HERE.

Read more »

The Authoritarian Violent Path to Faith. Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 9

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others]. In this post I'm going to write on a path to faith Mittelberg didn't mention, and probably didn't even think about. I previously wrote about the Authoritarian Path to Faith, i.e., "Truth Is What You've Always Been Told You Must Believe", which is being required to believe authority figures. However, being required to have "blind obedience" to "unquestioned authority" is bad, and very dangerous.

But being forced to believe under the threat of torture or death is so much worse. Any faith that does this is unworthy of belief. Period. There are no circumstances where this can be morally justified. So if any religion does this to gain converts, especially over the course of centuries and sanctioned by an overwhelming number of its intellectuals, leaders and practitioners, then such a religion should be discarded forever into the dustbin of history. At no point would a loving omniscient God allow his people to think this was a good thing to do. So if such a god cannot help his people refrain from doing this to others, he cannot do anything else in human history either, including starting such a religion in the first place.

Read more »

The Top Three Christian Apologetics Books As Recommended By Some Top Apologists

Here's a listing of the top three Christian apologetics books. Several Christians and apologists were asked for their recommendations. Then the top three books were compiled from their suggestions. Of those who comment here from time to time, neither David Marshall, Victor Reppert nor Randal Rauder's books made the list.

When it comes to recommended book lists, my first book ranked as the top atheist book of the last decade on one of them! Kinda humbling but kinda cool too.

Hoisting Mittelberg By His Own Petard: The Authoritarian Path to Faith. Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 8

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others]. Mittelberg discusses Six Paths of Faith in his book. In this post I"m going to write on the third path below: "Truth Is What You've Always Been Told You Must Believe".

1) The Relativistic Path: "Truth is Whatever Works for You"
2) The Traditional Faith Path: "Truth is What You've Always Been Taught"
3) The Authoritarian Faith Path: "Truth Is What You've Always Been Told You Must Believe"
4) The Intuitive Faith Path" "Truth Is What You Feel In Your Heart"
5) The Mystical Faith Path" "Truth Is What You Think God Told You"
6) The Evidential Faith Path: "Truth Is What Logic and Evidence Point To"

If you think #3 the Authoritarian Path of faith is the same as #2 the Traditional Path of faith, I'm with you. Still it probably deserves a separate chapter since they bring up different issues. Mittelberg distinguishes between them: The Traditional Path of faith (#2) is more of a religious tradition passed down to children from generation to generation that is passively received, whereas the Authoritarian path (#3) is based on "submission to a religious leader--past or present--and the ideas that leader holds up as the standard to live by." (p. 61) It's being required to believe authority figures. Being required to have "blind obedience" to "unquestioned authority" is bad, and very dangerous.

Read more »

Bad Bible Theology: Paul’s Letter to the Romans

Let me count the ways...that Paul got it wrong

Between April and December 2017, here on the Debunking Christianity blog, I published seventeen articles on Paul’s most famous letter, one of the charter documents of the Christian faith. There was an introductory article, and then one on each of the sixteen charters of the letter.

One reader requested a handy list of the links to all of them, so here it is.

I will shortly begin work in earnest on my next book, Bad Bible Theology: An Atheist Refutation of the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

Read more »

Revelation, Imagination...or Hallucination?

The Bible as Word of God, Fatal Flaw #1

One of the most extraordinary claims made by Christians is that God’s only means of communicating with the world is through the mammalian brain of one species. Yes, think about it, that’s it: the three or four pounds of living matter in our skulls. We’re told, of course, that there are several forms of divine revelation, e.g., answered prayer, visions, scripture. But there’s no way to get around it: all of these emerge from human brains; they come out of our heads.

Well, the concept doesn’t work, and it’s not hard to spot the flaws. Why would an all-powerful god, who—you would think—wants to get unambiguous messages across to human beings, have set things up in such slipshod fashion? Couldn’t he have done better? It might have been Carl Sagan who suggested that, instead, a savvy deity could flash messages on a planet-sized billboard on the Moon; that way we could get clear, up-to-date directives from the Overlord of the Cosmos.

Read more »

The Evidential Value of Conversion/Deconversion Stories. Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 7

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others].

I want to digress a bit for this post to discuss the value of personal conversion/deconversion stories. [Nomenclature: A conversion story is one which an atheist or nonbeliever becomes a Christian. A deconversion story is one in which a Christian becomes a non-believer or atheist.] In Mittelberg's book, conversion stories seem to play an important role. He discusses the apostle Paul's Damascus Road conversion experience, who was a persecutor of the church then a believer. Then there's Augustine of Hippo's conversion, from out of the pagan religion of Manichaeism. Jumping to our time he tells us of Lee Strobel, an atheist who turned evangelical, and the late Nabeel Qureshi, who was a Muslim but later became an evangelical after discussions with David Wood, who has his own shocking conversion story from atheist to evangelical Christian (which has 825K hits so far!). There is Mark Mittelberg's own story in this book, from a doubter to a confident Christian. He mentions other nonbelievers who became Christians, like Simon Greeleaf, Frank Morison (A.K.A. Albert Henry Ross), C.S. Lewis and Josh McDowell. Mittelberg also exploits the late Antony Flew's story (pp. 144-145), who was an atheist philosopher but came to believe in a deistic creator of the universe (but nothing more).

Mittelberg never tells any Christian-to-atheist deconversion stories. He just tells atheist-to-Christian conversion stories (plus Antony Flew's story). Should we fault him for not telling any deconversion stories? Yes, I think so! For it means he's not offering readers any evidence to consider, but rather trying to persuade them to believe based on the conclusions others reached. His faulty line of reasoning goes this: since atheist person X became a Christian, you should too. Why should that matter? He had asked readers to follow the evidence for themselves. But by putting forth several stories of skeptic/atheist conversions to Christianity he's not actually presenting any objective evidence for the readers to consider. Instead, he's presenting the conclusions of others about the evidence, which is arguing by authority, the very thing he questions later. He had also asked readers to follow logic. But by adopting the conclusion of others just because they adopted it is not logical. Why not just present the evidence? The stories are a propaganda technique designed purposefully to persuade.

Read more »

Out-of-Body Experiences

One common type of near-death experience is the out-of-body experience, which often involves seeing one’s own body from above. But even though they’re common, how good are they as evidence that a non-physical mind or spirit can actually exit the body?

Well, for one thing none of these experiences has, so far as I know, ever been scientifically confirmed as an actual out-of-body event. At best, the evidence has been inconclusive, as in the case of the widely-reported AWARE study. In addition, there are reasonable alternative explanations for such experiences (in part arising from the fact that the experiences occur in many different situations, such as during sensory deprivation or as a result of hallucinogenic drugs). A third consideration that isn’t as often discussed, though, is this: how a priori reasonable is the claim that these are actual out-of-body events? Or, to put it in Bayesian terms, what is its prior probability?

Read more »