Thomas Talbott's Critique of the Outsider Test for Faith

I am honored that Christian universalist Philosopher Thomas Talbott, of Willamette University, has offered a critique of my Outsider Test for Faith. Which can be found here. I plan on responding but I might not get to it for a month (it's not on my high priority list given the other projects I'm involved in right now). [Edit, sorry to say I didn't find anyone's criticisms to deserve the book I had offered for the best one.]

PZ Myers - Global Atheist Convention 2010

Watch it below:

Thom Stark: "Is God a Moral Compromiser? A Critical Review of Paul Copan’s “Is God a Moral Monster?”

Remember when William Lane Craig held up Paul Copan's book, Is God a Moral Monster?, during his debate with Sam Harris? Remember?

Now take a good hard look through Stark's review of it. Any questions?

Books like Copan’s will only take Christianity ten steps back-wards. In the name of inerrancy, the truth is trampled. Contemporary popular apologists tend to look for any way to salvage the text, no matter how unlikely or untenable the argument. They’ll use scholarly sources selectively, or pounce on one scholar’s argument and run away with it, without any concern for the fact the vast majority of scholars haven’t been persuaded by it. They’re not interested in what’s plausible, only in what’s “possible,” if it serves their immediate purposes. They trade in eisegesis, wild speculation, and fanciful interpretations, reading into the text what isn’t there, indeed, what’s often contradicted by the very passages they cite—something Copan himself does not infrequently, as we’ll see.

The question is whether or not Copan realizes he’s stealing home before the pitch. Is he aware that he’s presenting selective evidence, taken out of context, from sources that completely disagree with him? Is he aware that by ignoring certain questions and discussions, he’s able to give the impression that the evidence he loves to allude to (without citing) actually undermines his position? Perhaps he is. Perhaps he isn’t. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to believe that he isn’t aware, but I’ll reserve judgment and leave the question open-ended. Ultimately, however, whether Paul Copan is or is not a moral apologist, the fact of the matter is that he has failed, thoroughly failed, to demonstrate that the God of the Old Testament is not a moral monster.

Richard Dawkins - Global Atheist Convention 2010

Watch it below:

Christopher Hitchens: "Christianity is False and Immoral"

Bart D. Ehrman on the Historian and the Resurrection of Jesus

[Written by John W. Loftus] Here's what Ehrman wrote:

Bart Ehrman: Was Jesus Raised From the Dead?

A Letter From Christopher Hitchens

Link.

brdeadite99 vs GearHedEd on Ken Ham/Kent Hovind

GearHedEd in response to brdeadite99:

Bring it, Shuggoth!

Time Magazine Cover: Is Hell Dead?

Christians have been reinventing their faith from the beginning. It won't stop. That's my prediction. So what will become orthodoxy in 20-30 years? This will. The orthodoxy of today started out as the unorthodoxy of yesterday.

Richard Carrier vs JP Holding Debate Audio, Q & A on Doubt

Link

Arizona Atheist: The Truth Behind the New Atheism: A Refutation

Since David Marshall comments here perhaps he'd like to discuss a review of his book here too.

Link.

Johann Hari: "Christianity Has Lost the Argument...It Will Go Into the Dustbin of History"

These are clips from the BBC documentary "Does Christianity Have a Future?" The full 60 minute documentary can be found here.

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science, by Chris Mooney

We're not driven only by emotions, of course—we also reason, deliberate. But reasoning comes later, works slower—and even then, it doesn't take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that's highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about.

In other words, when we think we're reasoning, we may instead be rationalizing. Or to use an analogy offered by University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt: We may think we're being scientists, but we're actually being lawyers (PDF). Our "reasoning" is a means to a predetermined end—winning our "case"—and is shot through with biases. They include "confirmation bias," in which we give greater heed to evidence and arguments that bolster our beliefs, and "disconfirmation bias," in which we expend disproportionate energy trying to debunk or refute views and arguments that we find uncongenial. Link.

Review of The Belief Instinct, by Jesse Bering

Lady Atheist reviews this book by Jesse Bering, The Belief Instinct. Looks really good.

On God Answering Prayers Retroactively

Christians like C.S. Lewis and recently William A. Dembski in his book The End of Christianity, claim God can answer prayers retroactively. Kevin Timpe explains by saying "past directed prayers, as I understand them, are requests for God to have done something at a time prior to the time of the prayer." And he argues like Lewis and Dembski that God does in fact answer these prayers on most accounts of God's foreknowledge. ["Prayers for the Past" Religious Studies (2005) 41, 305–322]. This raises some interesting problems and allows me to propose a scientific test for prayer.

The Rest of the Story

Here is an excerpt from my book, Why I Became An Atheist: Personal Reflections and Additional Arguments:

I'll Be in Denver On April 29th

Link. I hope some of you can come out. Dr. Douglas Groothuis and I will dialog about my talk afterward. My friend Doug is a Christian apologist who has written or edited the following books: Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith, Unmasking the New Age, and In Defense of Natural Theology: A Post-Humean Assessment.

Nine Best Atheism Books of the 21st Century

Far be it for me to toot my own horn, but...this list on Amazon is exciting to me, especially when compared to the other books on the list. ;-)

Bill Craig Answers My Question

Remember what I asked? Here is his answer just after answering a previous one:

Why I Think The Rapture Madness is Indeed Madness

[Written by John Loftus] Below is a video where sincere believers describe what they think will happen in the future:

End of the World Predictions are a Dime a Dozen

You can see how many end time predictions there have been year by year. Just pick a year to learn who thought the world would end. Hat Tip Unreasonable Faith.

The "Need to Belong" Drives Belief in God

Yep, that's right.

Nothing More To Talk About, by TheThinkingAtheist

Mano Singham on the Ought-Is Fallacy

Most people understand that we cannot usually infer ought from is. But what religious people like Craig seem to be doing is committing the even worse offense of what one might call the 'ought-is fallacy', where because they think that we need an objective morality in order to keep our barbaric impulses under control, therefore it must exist. And since they also think that only a god can supply such a morality, therefore a god must exist also.

No.

Believers in god have to first establish using empirical evidence that god exists before they can use god in arguments about morality or anything else. You cannot argue for the existence of god on the basis of some property that you arbitrarily assert must exist (for whatever reason) and that could have only come from god. Link.