The Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) is a New Argument Against Religion

Yep, I think I have basically come up with a new argument in the history of religious criticism, even if there are a few prototypes of it to be found in the past. You already know the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) that I've proposed. It asks believers to test their own adopted religious faith from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism they use to evaluate other religious faiths.

Here's the argument: If one's own religious faith cannot be sustained due to consistently applying the skepticism of the OTF, then believers must either abandon their faith or come up with good reasons why they should not have to take the OTF because it is faulty in some way. But they cannot come up with any good reasons why they should not be consistent in evaluating all religious faiths.

What Darwin Never Knew, a PBS Nova Program

Nova produced this program first aired in December 2009. I watched it last night. It's wonderful. How many Christians understand evolution and the evidence for it? I doubt many do. While I watched it I thought to myself Christianity has been debunked a long time ago, that what I do is superfluous. And yet, here I am doing the dirty work with a lot of ignorant people who rail against me for simply telling them the truth. Watch it when you get the chance.

Quote of the Day, by Dude I'm Free

@Marcus,

Is There Such a Thing as a Humble Christian? What is it?

For discussion. As a Christian I remember wanting people to see Christ in me. I wanted to be like Christ as an advertisement like a billboard for Christ. I was conscious that people were watching me. Of course as a preacher I did live in a so-called glass house.

In any case, Christian, do YOU do that? Are YOU a self-promoter in the sense that you want, desire, hope, and pray that people will see what a good person you are so they can see Christ? "See what a good person I am" you say, or you secretly hope others see it without saying so?

And this stuff about humility. Scrap it. It's worthless stuff. Christian simply do not know what it is. Moses reportedly told everyone he was the most humble man on earth (Numbers 12:3). What a joke. Of course I don't think he wrote that, but some Christians are stuck explaining it away.

Christian, are you more humble than others? Sort of a catch-22 eh?

Freethinkers: A source guide to atheists, humanists and other nontheists

It looks to me that this site is the most up to date comprehensive online list of resources about freethinkers I have found. There is a great deal of information here. Check it out. My books are even mentioned in it!

Quote of the Day, by Erkki

Punishment has to serve a purpose, other than satisfying the punisher's lust for vengeance, in order to be of use. However, the Biblegod's version of punishment means that if you don't believe, your punishment never stops. It's pure vengeance. Unconditional love means that you use punishment only to correct and reform the wrongdoer. It's still tough love enough, for punishment is always tough to go through, but of course temporary, corrective punishment for sins is "too vanilla" or "too soft on sin" to please the conservative/fundamentalist segment of Christianity, heh. There's that lust for violence in the believers who adamantly preach that anyone who doesn't believe as they believe go to hell. It's a perversion, really.

I'm an atheist and I'm opposed to any religion that teaches the monstrosity of everlasting hell. So revolting is this concept that I can't see why any rational human being could accept this fear-mongering nonsense. But I'm sure if God exists, he's much nicer than the religious fanatics portray him to be. And more willing to correct even the worst villain ever and punish him only to cleanse him of his sins altogether. Because this is true love: to redeem even the worst among humans. Otherwise Satan or whoever is responsible for making humans sin is more powerful than God himself.

Even if Christianity Ends Up True There Would Be No Reason to Believe

Bertrand Russell was asked what he would tell God on judgment day why he did not believe. Russell reportedly said: "Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence."

So even if the Christian faith ends up being true there was still no reason thinking people should accept it, because only claims that can be reasonably justified should be embraced. You see, we have to reject a lot of true claims because they have not met their own burden of proof. This is both obvious and non-controversial. Aliens from space might have abducted someone, but without sufficient evidence commensurate with such a claim there is no reason why anyone should believe the person who asserts it. There are surely cases in which someone murdered another person but no one suspects he did the evil deed, because there is just no evidence to lead anyone to think he did. There are many hundreds of claims that we should never believe, even if they are true. That’s the case when it comes to Christianity. Even if it’s true, thinking people cannot believe it because it’s wildly improbable.

Quote of the Day, by PhysicistDave

The Christian theory that Jesus was God, as expounded by Lewis, has been refuted. The result has been deeply embarrassing attempts to prop up the discredited theory: I have in mind, for example Ed Feser’s horrible “The Last Superstition,” which pretends to justify Scholasticism by giving examples from modern science, examples which he gets horribly wrong.

Feser is a joke.

The Role of Persuasion Rather than Arguments With Brainwashed People

If brain studies mean anything people are persuaded into thinking differently. They aren't just reasoned into it. Persuasion. So in the interests of persuading people rather than continually following up on what seems to me to be a dead end with my opponents I simply try a different tact. People can claim what they want to about how I roll. It's just that I can better persuade my opponents by using several different ways of seeing the same truth rather than following them down the rabbit hole where we will not agree in the end anyway.

What Evidence Could Possibly Convince People God Walked the Earth?

Christian, just think one time for yourself without leaning on what your mother told you on her knees. What would you think if someone told you he met a person who was God incarnate in India last week? What would it take to convince you of his testimony? Let's say he was a personal friend of yours whom you knew would never lie. Pause and think about this and it's clear YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE HIM!

Now, what we find about Jesus is the same kind of testimony but this time we don't know anyone who claims to have met him. It's all written down in the ancient past. We don't know the authors nor can we adequately judge their honesty (honest writing can be faked).

But we do know these authors lived in an era where people believed demigods walked the earth and they believed there were many sons of gods who had virgin births.

So what kind of evidence could possibly lead you to think some man in the first century was an incarnate son of God? Since there can be none you don't believe because of the evidence! You believe because you were raised to believe, and now you defend what you prefer to be true.

The Future of (Secular) Humanism (or "So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades")

This is a good essay by David Silverman the new President of American Atheists. There's more he could've said, but it's very good. It's along the same lines as what David Mills said on ten reasons why we are approaching a "Golden Age of Atheism."

A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives

In her book A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives, Cordelia Fine cautions us when it comes to the conclusions of our brains. I claim that believers ought to take special heed of this and become agnostics. Believers retort that my brain may be deceiving me too. Let me say two things in response:

One) Okay let's all agree with the scientific data and become agnostics. I'm game if you are, otherwise dispute the data. Two) I do not affirm any religious beliefs. I am a non-believer. I don't think the evidence is there to believe in a three headed eternally existing God who created this particular world and became one of us to die on a cross for our sins in one lone part of the ancient world who bodily resurrected from the grave but was only seen by a few people, thereby forcing the rest of us to take their word on what they saw or spend an eternity in hell because we did not see this event for ourselves since we were born in a different time and place and were taught to think critically based in the modern sciences. Again, I do not believe this. It does not represent an intelligent plan from a perfectly good, all powerful God. If our brains deceive us when it comes to important issues like this then it's best not to be gullible and to demand evidence, hard evidence, positive evidence before we'll believe, especially since there are so many other believers in this world who are certain they are right about such matters too. Since there are so many different people all certain they have the answers to existence I can look at them all and say that until one of them steps up to the plate and offers something more by way of evidence than the others do then I cannot believe in any of them, and that's what I do.

Video of the Day, Suggested by Andre

I'm trusting him on this one:

How anyone can watch this video of NT Wright about Adam and then read the comments and walk away with a "Jesus Loves Me" feeling I don't know. Absolute insanity.

Quote of the Day, by Russ

Christian Apologetics is nothing more than making up answers that then become boilerplate, pat responses to hand out in lieu of thought.

Noteworthy Items

Check out Mike D's blog The A-Unicornist.

What percentages of atheists vs Christians are in prison? Who's better now?

Check out Dan DeMura's blog Discussions of Doubt.

James McGrath writes a note about the Christian troll DM.

Info on DM (a.k.a. Dave Mabus) Internet Troll and Nutcase

Link. He'll show his face here soon enough.

Atheism is Not Culturally, Historically Conditioned

Atheists today subscribe to a variety of philosophies, ideologies, and viewpoints. The critiques which any one atheist makes of religion, theism, or politics can reasonably be deconstructed to get at that atheist's own personal viewpoint. Their viewpoint can also be examined to get a better understanding of why they don't believe in any gods and why they reject the religious traditions of their culture. At no point, though, will such critiques tell us anything about mere atheism by itself. Link

ExChristian Former Pastor on the Fate of American Christianity

American Christianity is under assault from every side. Science, archeology, and history constantly push at the claims of the Bible. (and let me make one point very clear. A Christianity without the Bible is no Christianity at all) Seismic shifts in social and cultural norms continue to raise numerous questions about the value of the Bible and its teachings. Very often the modern world is a paper shredder and the Bible is the scrap paper. American Christians respond to this assault in one of two ways. They either entrench or retrench.

What Bruce Gerencser says is a very worthy read. Check it out.

The Crimes of Protestant Pastors are Many

I don't post stories about the crimes of Protestant pastors. I leave that up to others. Who does the best job of documenting these stories? I think Dave at exchristian.net does. Check back almost daily for more and more and more crimes of pastors. Is there any wonder why we can't take Christianity seriously when even their leaders don't seem to be any better for their faith? We're told that by their fruits we'll know them. Yep. We're told there are tares as well as wheat in the crops. But at some point there is just too much bad fruit and too many tares to believe the Christian faith produces fruit or wheat at all.

Catholics AND Bob Jones University: We Both Have Our Pedophiles!

A man who was a staff graduate assistant at Bob Jones University is accused of sex crimes against a child. Link

What is it with these idiot pedophiles? If there is no difference between the behavior of the general population and Christians then I see no reason to believe. It's especially bad when it seems sex crimes are more prevalent in the church. Christian, do you understand this?

Hat Tip: Harry McCall, an alumnus of BJU.

Quote of the Day, by Mike D

God is nothing more than the biggest argument from ignorance ever devised – an attempt to hastily dismiss mysteries by appealing to a bigger, by-definition-unsolvable mystery.

Is Skepticism Incompatible with Mystery?

There is a popular perception that skeptics are all just cynics who are unable to tolerate the existence of mysteries while believers — whether in gods or in the paranormal — are more open minded and willing to embraces the mysteries of life. Atheists are often accused of being unable to say "I don't know" and appreciate mystery in their lives. This is not only false, but it's exactly the opposite of the truth: it's the believers who reject mystery while atheists and skeptics accept it. Link

The Clergy Letter Project

There are 12,672 signatures from clergy as of 9/12/10. The Clergy Letter Project has been officially endorsed by The United Methodist Church, the Southeast Florida Diocese of the Episcopal Church and the Southwestern Washington Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Soooo, what I want to know is that if evolution is a godless "theory" then would some intelligent person tell me why these sincere Christians embrace it? Could it be because the evidence for evolution is there and that it has the capability of convincing even people of faith? Read at least one book on it, Why Evolution Is True.

Larry King Live - Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow...

Link. Hawking: "We don't need God to explain the universe." This is something he argues for in his #1 selling book on Amazon, The Grand Design.

Stephen Hawking's New Book, The Grand Design "is a Great Read"

Hawking's book is out and from what I've heard it's a great book sure to be talked about in the coming months and years ahead. Dan Barker said,

...this morning I finished Hawking's newest book, The Grand Design (while others were in church), and he makes the case even stronger than before. Since time is a dimension, it no more needs a "beginning" than any other dimension . . . what is the "beginning" of any of the three spatial dimensions? Ancients would have thought that the earth was flat and had an edge, so what kept the water from falling off? But we now see things better than that, through better models . . . and it all comes down to mental models.

The Grand Designis a great read!