Robert Conner's Book On the Resurrection of Jesus Is Now Available!

The book is titled, Apparitions of Jesus: The Resurrection as Ghost Story. Of Conner we're told he "studied Greek and Hebrew at Western Kentucky University from 1975 through 1977. Since 1983, he has published three books on magic in early Christianity, and a study of the “Secret” gospel of Mark controversy. He has always been fascinated with languages and enjoys reading the gospels in their original tongue." Conner is a blog member here at DC and comments frequently.

Both David Madison and I wrote blurbs for his book. Here's what I wrote:

Dr. Wallace Marshall Highly Endorses David Marshall's Book, "Jesus is No Myth"

I never thought I would do this, write a post introducing one of David Marshall's books to my readers. I have read through a couple of his books and they are bad, really bad, while what he writes online is worse, if that's possible. But he got my attention when Wallace Marshall (no relation) wrote a high recommendation of his book, Jesus is No Myth: The Fingerprints of God on the Gospels. As you might remember, I debated Wallace who also wrote a couple of recommendations for my works, LINK. Here is what Wallace said about David Marshall's book, following. I think mythicists and others should tear him a new one, that's all! ;-)

What About Atheists Who Are Raised As Atheists? *Sigh*

Listen, the challenge of re-considering what we were raised to accept is real. But there is a real difference in how children are raised. Teaching kids WHAT to think (indoctrination) is not the same thing as teaching them HOW to think. Indoctrination is wrong. From what I know the more conservative the religious faith is then the more that INDOCTRINATION is prevalent. The more that kids are indoctrinated to believe then the more important it is for them to to re-evaluate what they were taught by their parents. Since indoctrinated youths may not know for sure whether or not they were indoctrinated to believe, they should all re-evaluate what they were taught! It should be a right of passage into adulthood, to re-evaluate what was taught by one's parents before a youth can claim to be an adult. Anyway, see what you think about this "discussion" on Facebook with the indefatigable David Marshall:

Congitive Biases, Fallacies and the Outsider Test for Faith

The Outsider Test is Necessary and Important For Honest Seekers

‘The Brain on Faith’: What We’re Up Against

Theology fails the honesty test

Those who are distraught because they’ve discovered that Christianity can’t possibly be true—and are going through stages of grief—commonly say, “I lost my faith.” Something once treasured is now missing from their lives; they face the so-called ‘god-shaped hole.’

Those who are not upset by the “loss” of faith—something once taken for granted or endured has been left behind—commonly say instead, “I didn’t lose my faith. I saw through it.” They don’t face a ‘god-shaped hole.’ They are closer to embracing the human experience honestly.

Stealing from God: Intentions and the Laws of Nature

So far, we’ve covered causality, reason, and information in Turek’s C.R.I.M.E.S. acronym. But there is another “i” he mentions: intentionality (by which he simply means the characteristic of having intentions, rather than what that term means in the philosophy of mind). Acting intentionally is acting with purpose, or toward some goal. Most of this section of the book, however, is concerned with a more fundamental idea: That there are goals or purposes in all of nature. This is an idea that Turek learned from Edward Feser (a philosopher already familiar to many here at DC), who in turn got it from Aquinas. In fact, it’s the basis of Aquinas’s fifth way of proving the existence of God.

The Five Most Important Books That Changed My Mind!

I was challenged to share five books that shaped my life in some way. Here they are, plus a little commentary. They are the most important books that changed my life by changing my mind.

1) Howard Van Till's book, The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens are Telling Us about the Creation. Van Till was a a professor of physics and astronomy. His book changed the way I thought about the Bible and science. It taught me I simply cannot trust what I was raised to believe. It also taught me that science can be trusted over the ancient creationist myths in Genesis. It was the catalyst that took me from a conservative evangelical to a progressive and/or liberal Christian, and beyond to an agnostic and later to atheism. From then on I looked to scientific reasoning for the answers, not the Bible, and certainly not faith. After coming to this conclusion the rest was a forgone conclusion.

God’s Defenders Can’t Get Their Act Together

More Evasion, Bluffing, and Pretending

Here we go again…trying to get believers to level with us. In my article published here on 4 May 2018, When God Is Nowhere to Be Found, I restated the Put-Up-or-Shut-Up Challenge for those who insist that God is real:

“Please tell us where we can find reliable, verifiable data about God, and all devout theists must agree: ‘Yes, this is where the reliable, verifiable data can be found.’”

We’re not asking them to prove anything. We’re not even asking them to show us the data. Just tell us where we can find it. How can that be unreasonable, if God is present everywhere? Apologists can be a sneaky bunch, and one who frequently drops in on the Debunking Christianity blog, offered this insult to our intelligence:

Stealing from God: Turek’s Flawed Information Argument

In chapter three of Stealing from God, Turek asks us to imagine walking along a beach and seeing the words “John loves Mary” scribbled in the sand. We would never think that a crab making random marks on the ground was responsible. And the reason we wouldn’t, he says, is because “John loves Mary” contains information: That’s how we know that someone with a mind was responsible. But, Turek goes on, DNA also contains information. In fact, it contains far more information than “John loves Mary.” Therefore, we should conclude that a mind was responsible for it as well.

There’s just one problem with this argument:

Who Gets to Decide What God Meant?

The Bible as Word of God: Fatal Flaw Number 3 (of 5)

Is it really smart to push the idea that God wrote a book to get his message across to the world? Of course, he didn’t write it himself, but his holy spirit settled upon authors whom he favored, and they wrote the actual words. Many Christians assume that this is how the Bible was created.

But it seems like a high-risk strategy.

The favored authors—flawed human beings, after all—ended up putting so much drivel and trash into their “inspired” writings. And, yes, even the most devout Christians (with the exception of die-hard fundamentalists) can spot the useless Bible filler that shouldn’t be in a ‘holy’ book. In fact, this damages any confidence that a perfect divine mind had anything to do with it, which I discussed in the second article this series, God Gets a Big Fat “F” as an Author.

Stealing from God: Reason, Part 2

There’s a lot more to chapter two than the argument we considered last time. Turek raises several additional problems that the materialist supposedly faces, since, as he erroneously believes, “the category of immaterial reality is not available to the atheist.” Much of what he says just shows that he doesn’t have a good grasp of the subject. For instance, after pointing out that practically all the cells that were in our bodies fifteen years ago have since been replaced, he asks, “if the mind and the brain are the same, how could you remember anything earlier than fifteen years ago?” I doubt many materialists will lose any sleep pondering that one. The main issue he addresses, however, is that of the existence of logic itself.

Turek claims that the laws of logic are immaterial and therefore “would not exist if the purely material world of atheism were correct.” Thus, if there are logical laws, there must be a God.

This is a favorite tactic of presuppositionalists. The point is to immediately put a stop to any atheistic argument. If logic depends on God, then any reasoning the atheist uses presupposes that God exists and is therefore self-defeating.

Is There Value in Debunking Christianty?

While we take aim at the Christian faith here at DC, there are skeptics and atheists who disagree with what we're doing, such as Jeff T. Haley and Dale McGowan in Sharing Reality: How to Bring Secularism and Science to an Evolving Religious World. I have not read their book. I'm guessing it contains a lot I would not vehemently disagree with. What is their principal thesis? Ronald Lindsay tells us in a review for a recent issue of Free Inquiry Magazine. It's that "promoting science and secularism is more important and more useful than attacking theism directly."

Now anyone who knows me, knows I embrace all effective approaches when it comes to debunking Christianity, and that science is indeed the most effective way to do so. What I don't understand very well are people who steer all of our energy into one approach, discouraging and even disparaging other approaches.

I'm going to share a Facebook discussion I had about this very issue in a bit. Let me introduce it first. It arose out of my high recommendation of a recent posting by Dr. David Madison. This One! On Facebook I linked to it and wrote: "I consider this post by David Madison and the challenge itself, to be the most important one he's written. THIS. SHOULD. VIRAL. GO! If I could tag everyone of my FB friends I would do so. I can only select 50 people at a time." Then I tagged a few people who had names in the early letters of the alphabet. One of them showed up and proceeded to fire at me. Before I share it, let me first say a few things about the indefatigable and fantastic Madison.

The Anti-Jewish Jesus: Socio-Rhetorical Criticism as Apologetics

The Bible and Interpretation has published an essay based on a chapter of my book, The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics (2015).  You can find it here.

ABSTRACT

Within biblical scholarship proper, one finds two basic positions concerning the historical responsibility for Christian antiJudaism. One position argues that any anti-Judaism is primarily the product of post-biblical Christian interpretation. Representative scholars include Paul N. Anderson and Paula Fredriksen. The other position argues that anti-Judaism is already present in the New Testament writings. Amy-Jill Levine and Adele Reinhartz, for example, explore how the Gospels bear some responsibility for the anti-Judaism of later Christianity. I will argue more emphatically that anti-Judaism can be traced back to Jesus himself, at least as he is portrayed in the Gospels.

When God Is Nowhere to Be Found

Apologists bluff, evade, and pretend

Waffling is an art form among the academic crowd committed to defending the Christian faith at all costs. When presented with an unanswerable question, they pretend it’s the wrong question, and wander down a trail of pathetic excuses.

This is the Put-Up-or-Shut Up challenge that apologists run away from:

Please tell us where we can find reliable, verifiable data about God, and all devout theists must agree: “Yes, this is where the reliable, verifiable data can be found.”

Come Celebrate National Day Of Reason With Us, Or Admit You Don't Really Value It Over Faith

Atheists celebrate reason because we are the party of reason. What's there not to like about this? Nothing at all. Come celebrate with us. Show us you too celebrate reason. Let's see if believers will share this meme. To the degree they don't is to the same degree that, despite all their talk, they place a higher value on faith than reason, even though we know faith is an utterly unreliable way to know anything about the nature of nature, or its workings.

Believers, admit it, you cringe when this day is celebrated. That's your lying reptilian brain telling you to avoid thinking about what reason has accomplished through the world of science.

Pre-Pub Announcement of Karen Garst's Book, "Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith – and for Freedom"

I haven't seen this book yet but the topic is one of the main reasons I debunk Christianity. I'm appalled by what Christianity (and religion) has done, and is doing to women. I know Dr. Garst and wrote a blurb for a previous book of hers titled, Women Beyond Belief: Discovering Life Without Religion:

“Why would anyone embrace a male-dominated religion in today’s world, or any religion for that matter? Specifically, why would women embrace the religion of their male oppressors? Given the stories told in this wonderful tell-all book, they shouldn’t . . . . I bid all readers to follow the reasoning and examples of the authors in this book. Their stories are quite revealing and fascinating. Highly recommended!” —John W. Loftus, author, Why I Became an Atheist; editor, Christianity Is Not Great.

I also know of a few of the author's in this book. So it should be a very good one too!

Karen sent me an introduction to it, which can be read below.

HISTORIC NEWS – Announcing the Creation of the Congressional Freethought Caucus!

I received an email from Roy Speckhardt about a historic event!

We made history!

The Center for Freethought Equality (CFE) and the American Humanist Association (AHA) are proud to announce the establishment of the first-ever Congressional Freethought Caucus as a Congressional Member Organization of the 115th Congress.

Founded by Representatives Jared Huffman (D-CA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Jerry McNerney (D-CA) and Dan Kildee (D-MI) the mission of the Congressional Freethought Caucus is to:

promote public policy formed on the basis of reason, science, and moral values; protect the secular character of our government by adhering to the strict Constitutional principle of the separation of church and state; oppose discrimination against atheists, agnostics, humanists, seekers, and nonreligious persons; champion the value of freedom of thought and conscience worldwide; and provide a forum for members of Congress to discuss their moral frameworks, ethical values, and personal religious journeys.

The AHA and the CFE were honored to be participants in—and in one case the host of—the organizational meetings held to create and define the objectives for this caucus. The very existence of this Congressional caucus for freethinkers and humanists is a marker of how far the movement for secular and nontheist equality has come. This significant step is also a new beginning for our country as both religious and non-religious leaders work to better the nation.

Your support makes progress like this possible! Donate to the AHA today to help us ensure that public policy is based on reason, science and the separation of church and state.

Sincerely,
Roy Speckhardt

Faith is An Irrational Leap Over the Probabilities

What else can faith mean? The probabilities are all we need to arrive at truth. Why would anyone need more than that? If we proportion our conclusions to the strength of the objective evidence (via David Hume) there's nothing to add, unless it's an irrational need.

Quote of the Day on Determinism, by Patricia Churchland

This quote comes via Michael Williams, something Victor Reppert should take note of in his argument to his particular god from reason:

That determinism rules out reasoning is one of the most annoying arguments ever. It's just thrown out there as if it's obvious (kind of like "you need free will to love"). Even Edward Feser in his book Five Proofs of the Existence of God says, "Human beings are rational animals and for that reason capable of such free action."

I think Patricia Churchland addressed this very well: "If determinism is correct, it does not in the least follow that we do not reason... On the contrary, what follows is that our reasoning and our reasoned behaviour is causally produced. So far from denying that humans are purposeful and reasonable, determinism is the thesis that there is a causal network which produces such behaviour."[Is Determinism Self-refuting? -- Patricia Smith Churchland -- Mind, New Series, Vol. 90, No. 357. (Jan., 1981), pp. 99-101.]

Stealing from God: Reason, Part 1

In chapter two, Turek elaborates on a point he initially raises earlier in the book, namely that given atheism, we cannot trust any of our reasoning. In a godless universe, he claims, “we are mere meat machines without free will,” and thus “have no justification to believe anything we think, including any thought that atheism is true.”

What he’s essentially arguing, then, is that the absence of free will is incompatible with reasoning — which means he’s now conflating atheism not just with materialism, but with determinism as well.

At any rate, the idea behind the argument is that reasoning only occurs when we freely accept conclusions. If the conclusions we reach are the result of deterministic laws of cause and effect, then we have no choice but to accept them — and in that case, how can we know that we’ve reached the correct conclusion? As Turek puts it, given atheism, you have “no control over what you are doing or what you are thinking.”

When God Is on a Par with Donald Duck. Seriously.

Christianity: sabotaged by the Old Testament

“Where did my religious beliefs come from?” If only pious people bothered to ask this question—and were genuinely curious—they might not be so compliant. I once asked a devout Christian woman this question and was told, “From my mother”—whom she confessed, she is eager to see again in heaven. And the mother, of course, had learned the faith at her mother’s knee. That seemed to satisfy this woman in terms of authenticating the faith.

Did she suppose that the faith had been handed down, uncorrupted, from mother to daughter, for the 50 or so generations since it had been proclaimed by the original Peter, Paul and Mary? Just skip all the councils, wars, heresy trials, and schisms that have made Christianity what it is today, all 30,000 versions of it.

Stealing from God: Causality, Part 2

The second main point Turek makes in his chapter on causality is that without God, there would be no laws of nature — and therefore no cause and effect:

“Have you ever asked yourself, why are there laws at all?… Why is reality governed by cause and effect? Why are the laws of nature so uniform, precise, and predictable?”

He says that “Either they arose from a preexisting supernatural intelligence or they did not.” (And he adds that “even Lawrence Krauss recognizes this” — which shouldn’t be surprising, given that those are the only two logical possibilities!) And of the two, the first of course appears to him far more likely: “After all, experience tells us that laws always come from lawgivers.”

"Is Religious Faith Reasonable?" The Spiegel vs Loftus Debate, 4/19/18

The following three videos (two for now) are of my recent debate with Dr. Jim Spiegel on the question, "Is Religious Faith Reasonable?"

As you watch us debate perhaps you'd like to read a newspaper write-up about it, HERE. Or, you might want to skip my opening statement to read it, HERE. I prepared more than I could say, so I'm sharing a few extras, HERE.

Two videos are below. The first one is from the Brookville Road Community Church near Indianapolis, on April 18th. The second one is from the Free-Thought Fort Wayne group on April 19th. The sound quality is lacking on this one, but I did much better. After the first debate my wife prompted me to answer Jim point for point, so I did.

Former Pastor Dr. Calvin Kelly Leaves His Faith, Recommends Joseph Atwill's Book "Caesar's Messiah"

I met Calvin at my debate with Jim Spiegel. What a superb guy he is, and a fantastic ally. His story is similar to many others in the clergy. It's heartbreaking. Anyone who thinks we ever wanted to reject our faith just doesn't understand the pain we have to go through. He lives in Fort Wayne and works with the NAACP. Where are the equivalent stories of atheists who are ex-Christians, former activists, Street Epistemologists, academics or debunkers who subsequently embraced evangelical Christianity? I don't think there has even been one. No, not C.S. Lewis, either. Here's a link to Caesar's Messiah.