Richard Carrier Easily Rips Into Timothy Keller's Book, "The Reason for God"

Dr. Carrier calls Keller's book "Dishonest Reasons for God" and I agree. It's a NY Times Top Ten Bestseller. Is this the best Christian apologists for Jesus can do? I wrote a book detailing the dishonest ways Christians defend their faith. I informed them how to defend their faith honestly, if it can be defended at all. The problem is their faith cannot be defended honestly, so if they want to be honest they shouldn't defend it at all, or they should find new and better ways to defend it. Carrier:

It used to be C.S. Lewis. Then Josh McDowell. Then Lee Strobel. Now it’s Timothy Keller, whose The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (published in 2008) is the number one most read defense of Christianity. So here’s why it’s bunk. LINK.

"Faking Jesus" by Robert Conner

That Jesus Studies is rife with flawed scholarship, special pleading, fideism, rank speculation, manufactured relevance, careerism, homo‑phobia and the misogyny that homophobia implies, sectarian allegiances, personal agendas, fraud and simple incompetence should come as no surprise to anyone conversant with the field. Indeed,whether Jesus Studies is even an academic discipline as usually understood is debatable, and that Jesus Studies has precious little to do with history is certain. Mainstream scholars have understood for quite some time that the gospels are not history by any modern definition. It is widely con‑ceded that the gospel authors were writing decades after the events they purport to relate, that the writers were pseudonymous, that they were not eyewitnesses, that both the provenance and intended audience of each gospel is a matter of conjecture, and that the primary sources on which the gospels are ultimately based are unknown and unknowable. It is universally conceded that no original exists for any gospel and that the gospels that have survived are copies of copies that preserve variant wording. LINK.

"Myth Versus History: Playing hide-and-seek with Jesus" by Robert Conner

An essay that examines "soft" versus "hard" mythicism, the theory that Jesus was not a historical character and that the gospels are complete fabrications.

LINK

Did Yahweh Have a Wife?

Of course God had a wife, and Dr. Karen Garst neatly summarizes the evidence right here.

A Review of David Fitzgerald's Jesus: Mything in Action

Those who do research and then present their findings often discover that there is more work to do. Such was the case in 2010 when David Fitzgerald published a little book called Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed. His award-winning foray into mythicist studies left readers clamoring for more, but serious historical investigation takes time. Now, the long-awaited follow-up is finally available. Fitzgerald’s Jesus: Mything in Action is a three-part work that his fans will undoubtedly agree was well worth the wait.

On the Hunt for Other Theologians in the Galaxy

To escape the mindless speculations of those on Earth

Humans have been hoping to find neighbors in the Cosmos for a long time. “Are we alone?” has been a haunting question. Are there other thinking creatures ‘out there’? It was astronomer Frank Drake who, in 1961, first proposed a formula to stimulate thought experiments on the matter. Known as the Drake Equation, it includes the factors we need to know in order to determine the probabilities: How many stars are there in our galaxy? How many have habitable planets? On how many of those has life actually arisen?

Why Do Most Christians Believe?

Here's me summing up a discussion I saw here on Debunking Christianity:

Jim: "I believe what I was raised to believe and/or what a set of ancient pre-scientific writings say and/or what I feel must be true about the origins of the universe. In other words, what I believe is based on utterly unreliable means with little or no objective evidence."

Him: "When it comes to the origin of the universe I will wait for the final results of science since it has solved, and continues to solve, so many unanswered questions."

On Solving The Problem of Induction, Revisited

Many times I'm accused of not understanding a particular problem merely because I disagree with how it's best answered. In today's case I'm accused of being ignorant about the problem of induction. I understand a great deal about the philosophical quandaries involved, which I briefly wrote about earlier, and which can be read at the Online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. My Christian self reveled in this problem along with other apologists, since our goal was to show that science is only possible given a creator god of the Christian kind, and that even scientists need faith. I now vehemently disagree with my former Christian self on these counts.

I think the problem of induction is just a philosophical puzzle for philosophers interested in solving philosophical puzzles, and that's it. The philosopher who can solve it wins, you see. But solving it in it's current form means coming up with a theory of everything and/or in explaining the problem of our existence itself, that is, why this particular universe exists rather than nothing at all. Philosophers will never solve these problems because only scientists can solve them, if they can be solved at all.

Does inductive reasoning work? Most emphatically it does. In fact, no scientist has ever documented a single case where it didn't work to increase our knowledge of the universe. Could good inductive reasoning fail to work? I don't see how it could, for to show it didn't work at a given time means using inductive reasoning to show that it didn't work. At the very best, the odds of my being wrong about inductive reasoning are almost infinitesimally small (and even if I'm wrong about this, it doesn't change the fact that scientists should continue reasoning inductively).

Faith is not involved in reaching this conclusion, nor do I need certainty before claiming to know something, anything. All that reasonable people must do is the one thing most believers cannot bring themselves to do. They should think exclusively in terms of the probabilities based on solid objective evidence. When reasonable people think this way there's no room for faith, nor any need for certainty which usually goes with it.

So can I explain why inductive reasoning works in our particular universe? Basically, yes.

Inductive reasoning works in this universe

because it works in this universe, and that's it.

In other universes it might not work.

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Any questions?

On Solving the Problem of Induction

[Redated post from 11/27/13]
Vincent Torley takes on Sean Carroll, Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins and myself when it comes to justifying scientific knowledge. He spends some time on the dreaded problem of induction and goes on to pretend to know things he doesn't know, by asserting his particular god makes science possible such that, without pretending to know what he does, science has no justification. LINK.

The problem of induction was brought to the attention of intellectuals by David Hume. Atheist philosopher Stephen Law is on record as saying:

Hume’s argument continues to perplex both philosophers and scientists. There’s still no consensus about whether Hume is right. Some believe that we have no choice but to embrace Hume’s sceptical conclusion about the unobserved. Others believe that the conclusion is clearly absurd. But then the onus is on these defenders of “common sense” to show precisely what is wrong with Hume’s argument. No one has yet succeeded in doing this (or at least no one has succeeded in convincing a majority of philosophers that they have done so). LINK (see his conclusion).

Law concludes that no one has succeeded so far, which includes Vincent Torley's god hypothesis. Law refuses to pretend to know things he doesn't know, which I find admirable. However, we shouldn't forget that Hume lived in an era where philosophers were looking for certainty, following in the footsteps of Descartes. Hume brought the quest for certainty to an end though, showing that if we seek after certainty we cannot observe cause and effect, or that we have a self either (as opposed to a bundle of sensations). This is the difference that makes all the difference. The quest for a certain foundation for knowledge is, or should be, dead. But because of the lack of certainty Torley erroneously inserts his unevidenced mysterious miracle god-hypothesis into the equation.

"My modernized compassionate God is the true deity. Christians are to blame for the wrong done in his name."

I edited a huge book of 558 pages attacking such nonsense, called, Christianity is Not Great. In an announcement I made when it went to print you can see the chapter titles and authors. Below you can see a few recommendations/blurbs:

Former Pastor Joseph: "It was all in my mind. God doesn't talk to people."

After 40 years as an insider, what I saw was:

1) a legion of believers fervently praying to "know the will of God" only to end up making their own decision that they "sensed" God was "leading them" to make. The reality: It's all in their mind. God doesn't talk to people.

2) Ditto to everything above but from another angle. Since God was not saying anything to them, they sought the counsel of the "aged saints" to instruct them on what to do. The reality: It's all in their mind. God doesn't talk to people.

3) A common complaint that I heard over four decades was "God seems so far away." To which the "great saints" would retort "This is a normal occurrence in the life of a believer. This is why its faith." The reality: It's all in their mind. God doesn't talk to people.

4) No two believers agreed on all matters ethically and doctrinally. There are roughly 1000 commands in the Bible. No two believers observe and ignore the same ones. The reality: It's all in their mind. God doesn't talk to people.

5) believers would hold dearly to the invented tenant that the Bible is "how God talks to us now." Why? Because of reality. It's all in their minds. God doesn't talk to people.

Without exaggeration, I have spent hundreds of hours in prayer during my lifetime. It truly was one directional. Any feedback internally was nothing more than imagined and conditioned amygdalan responses.

I'll never forget the awakening moment I had walking as a pastor in a forest preserve in the burbs of Chicago. It was at that time that I realized there was no one of the other side of my prayers. It was all in my mind. God doesn't talk to people.

In a 2009 study done by Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago we now know it's all in the mind of the believer. "God" (the English name of the Christian god) doesn't talk to people. Believers simply create their own religion, their own Gospel, and their own God in their own image. This has been shown TO BE A FACT. The study, as reported by Discovery magazine, needs to be shared more widely than it has BEEN so far. It proves that it's all in the mind of the believer. God doesn't talk to people. Why? Because its been shown he agrees with every single believer on a host of different unrelated issues. Given that God cannot agree with everyone then God doesn't talk to anyone. To continue maintaining God talks to any given believer, or any select group of believers, is utter madness, a delusion, given the number of people God agrees with in the world.

“Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance.”

It remains the study of human guesswork about god(s)

I was a Bible geek when I was in high school and college, but when I arrived at graduate school, Boston University School of Theology, my study of the Bible moved into higher gear. In my PhD program, among other things, I had to achieve reading competency in German, because German-speaking scholars were at the forefront of biblical studies and theology (if theology can be said to have a forefront)—and had been for generations.

Quote of the Day by Karl Gilberson (with comment)

Gilberson wrote a nice blurb for my book, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist. Yesterday on Facebook he wrote this gem:



Given all that science has explained from its inception, what are they waiting for, the day science can explain everything? *Sheesh* So what would they say if it could explain everything? Will believers say their god created the universe perfectly without any gaps at all?

Where is the Virgin Mary When You Really Need Her?

There’s some really big sin to slap down

One of the bullets that struck Pope John Paul II on 13 May 1981 is now attached to the crown of the Lady of Fátima statue in Portugal. The thirteenth of May, you see, happens to be the Feast Day of the Lady of Fátima, and the pope had been an ardent devotee of the Virgin Mary his whole life. So he was convinced that Mary had saved his life; she had guided the bullet to miss a major artery. We’re tempted to wonder if Mary’s effort hadn’t been half-hearted: why didn’t she guide the bullet to miss the pope altogether? Piety has a way of blunting common sense.

I do have to wonder what prior century I’m living in—or may have been suddenly transported to—when I read a National Geographic article titled 500 Years of Virgin Mary Sightings in One Map.

At the top of the map we find this explanation:

“Starting in the 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church instituted a strict vetting process for miracles like the 2,000 sightings of the Virgin Mary claimed since A.D. 40. To be worthy of belief and church support, apparitions must be deemed miraculous with a high degree of certainty and in line with church doctrine, and found to have had a positive impact.”

“…deemed miraculous with a high degree of certainty…” ? They only wish.

I don’t know if the ardent Catholic investigators check out all reports of Mary appearing on tree bark or toast—one piece of Virgin Mary toast brought $28,000 at auction—or if they seek to verify all of the Mary statues that supposedly bleed or weep.

If this is how Mary chooses to use her time and talents, I suggest that she should apply for a job upgrade. There are much bigger things to worry about. Yes, an attempted papal assassination is worthy of attention, but is there any way we can petition the Holy Mother to take her role as Queen of Heaven more seriously?

THIS is where she really needs to show up: every time a priest is about to rape a child, Mary should pop up in the room, scowling like the most severe nun ever. There could be variations on her message, “You will rot in hell,” “Put it back in your pants,” “Don’t even think about it,” “Not even my son can save you if you do this.”

The problem, of course, is that the Holy Mother doesn’t have a strong role model. Pope Francis, that smiling master of public relations, has fallen down on his job as well. He likes to have informal chats with reporters on the papal plane, but it would be far better to hold monthly news conferences at the Vatican, with the sole purpose of bringing the world up to date on what he’s doing to prevent priests from raping kids. We need to know how many priests have been handed over to local police; how many predator priests have been fired after being moved on to other parishes; how many bishops and cardinals have been fired for helping with the cover-ups. The pope also needs to give the world an update on how the church has improved its vetting processes to detect priest candidates who remain stuck in sexual adolescence; also, Holy Father, describe the resources that have been gathered to help celibate clergy understand human sexuality.

Maybe we’re expecting too much of a church that counts on Mary worship to coddle the gullible; actually, Mariolatry is big business, so no doubt they deem it best to keep that product as far away as possible from the criminal activity responsible for the collapse of the church’s moral authority.


David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years and has a PhD in Biblical Studies. His book, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, was published last year by Tellectual Press.

Who the Hell Hired Matthew to Write a Gospel?

No, it is not okay to just make stuff up

Gospels are sacred things. In some churches it is the custom for the congregation to stand when the gospel lesson is read. The worshippers are surrounded by stained glass windows that depict the cherished stories found in the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—and those same stories, in illuminated manuscript form, have become works of art. When we say that something is “the gospel truth”—well, who could ask for more?

Dr. Valerie Tarico Interviews Former Minister David Chumney

David Chumney writes for us here at DC, so it's good he's getting some more attention. LINK.

Our Differences Are Not Worldview Differences. Believers Are Simply Ignorant!

I have come to the conclusion I was duped so badly by faith that up until the last few years I adopted some of its obfuscationist rhetoric aimed at hiding the truth. I used to say the problem between believers and non-believers isn't ignorance but rather a different way of seeing the evidence, that it was a problem of having different worldviews. Now I see the difference between believers and non-believers is not mainly a worldview problem, although it is that. It's not about seeing the evidence differently through different worldviews. It's not because we view the evidence differently due to different background knowledge either. It's because of ignorance, sheer ignorance, sometimes massive ignorance, and even willful ignorance. The difference between us is that believers are simply ignorant. There's no such thing as background knowledge leading believers to see the evidence differently, since that which is not true isn't considered knowledge at all. So this isn't a case of merely seeing things differently. The evidence is decisively against faith. The problem is that believers don't know how to think logically. They don't know they are controlled by cognitive biases that prohibit them from desiring the truth. So they don't know how to counteract these cognitive biases by demanding hard cold evidence based in scientific thinking. Even their best apologists defend their faith by special pleading. They don't even know they do so, but they do, all of them to some degree. They begin with faith then seek to confirm it in almost every case. They'll grab anything off the internet that defends it, even from a one hundred year old encyclopedia (as one ignorantly did here recently), if it says what they need it to say. More sophisticated apologists don't do that, but they're not really different in that they are experts in obfuscationist philosophy.

I wrote three books to educate believers on how to seek the truth. The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion is True shows honest believers how to approach their faith consistently without any double standards or special pleading. How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist shows Christian apologists how to correctly defend their faith, if it can be defended at all. Apologists should read it before writing another sentence in defense of their faith. In it I challenge apologists to stop doing what they're doing if they're serious about defending the Christian faith. The risk is that if they stop it they cannot defend their faith at all. But the risk is worth it if they're serious about knowing and defending the truth. Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End shows philosophers of religion and other intellectuals, whether atheist or Christian, how to properly evaluate religious faith itself. What I cannot teach Christians however, is to desire the truth. That comes from within. Taken together these three books are the antidote to faith. The problem is that, numerically speaking, almost none of them desire the truth. Here's hoping a few honest believers are reading who desire the truth. Cheers.