Apologist Josh McDowell: Internet the Greatest Threat to Christians

[Written by John W. Loftus] According to Josh McDowell,

The Internet has given atheists, agnostics, skeptics, the people who like to destroy everything that you and I believe, the almost equal access to your kids as your youth pastor and you have... whether you like it or not.

Now here is the problem, going all the way back, when Al Gore invented the Internet [he said jokingly], I made the statement off and on for 10-11 years that the abundance of knowledge, the abundance of information, will not lead to certainty; it will lead to pervasive skepticism. And, folks, that's exactly what has happened. It's like this. How do you really know, there is so much out there... This abundance [of information] has led to skepticism. And then the Internet has leveled the playing field. Link

About Randal Rauser's Blurb for "The End of Christianity"

Someone questioned why a Christian professor would blurb an atheist book. Here is his response. Listen up, if God does not want informed people then this is a very sad commentary on the state of Christian affairs. As I said before, you must actively seek out disconfirming evidence if you really want to know the truth. Disconfirming evidence is decisive. At least Dr. Rauser knows this, even if we still disagree.

It's Ignorant to Say "There is No Evidence for a Historical Jesus"

Okay, having watched James McGrath and Tommy Baker duke it out with the fanatical mythicists (not all are fanatical), I want to put to rest the ignorant claim that “There is no evidence for a historical Jesus.” There most definitely is. It's called "confirming evidence" or evidence of things we would expect to find if there was a historical Jesus, and it is Legion.

Dr. James McGrath: "My Criticisms of Mythicism Must Be On Target"

That's his claim. See what you think. He even links to something I wrote that he considers relevant.

Spiritual Warfare Monger C. Peter Wagner: "Japan is Cursed"

This is the kind of crap that needs to be eradicated from a civilized society. I'm just glad no one is our President who thinks this way. Sarah Palin anyone? Christians, police your own ranks. Link

"Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" ;-)

Link.

Quote of the Day

The probability that God inspired the Bible is inversely proportional to the probability that it developed in ways indistinguishable from a purely human process (i.e., the more probable it looks like a purely human process then the less probable it has God as an author), and there is overwhelming evidence that it looks indistinguishable from a purely human process. -- John W. Loftus

Disconfirming Evidence is Decisive

[Written by John Loftus]

Pool of Siloam

I actually saw the Pool of Siloam for myself when I was in Jerusalem in 1989. What follows from this? The archaeological evidence is consistent with the Gospel stories about Jesus sending the blind man there who was healed (John 9:1-7). But it does nothing to show Jesus healed the man. Roswell, New Mexico, is an actual city too. Is this evidence of the existence of aliens? Both cases are equivalent. The existence of the Pool of Siloam and the city of Roswell are what we would expect to find if such claims were true, but that's all it shows. This is called confirming evidence.

Delusional on a Grand Scale, My Review of Michael Licona's book, "The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach"

Link. It's sure to be hotly contested.

God and Evolution Don’t Mix, by Dr. John Shook

If God was trying to produce us through evolution, what does that tell us about a God that would use that method? Here’s some suggestions:

Dr. Avalos on the Minnesota Atheists Radio Show

Dr. Avalos talks about biblical slavery and ethics with Minnesota Atheists Talk in anticipation of his forthcoming book, Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship.

Science, the Flood, and the Bible, Oh My!

Today's assignments boy and girls are to 1) Study a chart on Belief in Evolution versus National Wealth. 2) Read Phil Senter's article, The Defeat of Flood Geology by Flood Geology. 3) Read an essay or two from Thom Stark on Religion at the Margins. 4) Then you can take a trip to Israel vicariously with Dr. James McGrath who is our guest teacher today.

Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”?

Hey Bible thumpers, if you won't listen to me then listen to one of your own:

One of the dodges by some Christian “philosophers”, theologians, fundamentalists, and others, is to suggest that the goal of higher criticism is to “destroy the Bible” or “destroy faith.” Typically, this is a rhetorical device intended to dismiss higher criticism in its entirety. This kind of argumentation is important as it leaves the person suspicious of higher criticism with a feeling of comfort, and much more importantly: they never have to consider any of the procedures or evidence of biblical criticism.

Dr. Avalos vs. Dr. Weikart: The Rematch

Dr. Avalos debates Dr.Richard Weikart on whether Darwinism or Christian anti-Judaism better explains the Nazi Holocaust. Enjoy.

The OTF Exemplified In Practice

Here is a debate between Valerie Dennett an atheist, Zakir Deedat a Muslim, Greg Turkel a Christian, Hugh Talmage a Mormon, and Moritz Duam a Jew. This is what I'm talking about!

Two Milestone Rankings Passed Today

The first one is that The End of Christianity reached a ranking on Amazon below 1,200th.

It may get even better before it's over. The question is how long it will stay down there. Hopefully for a couple of months or more.

Bart Ehrman's Lecture for the Commonwealth Club

God Cannot be Contrary to his own Predictions.

Here is a criticism about God’s omniscience and omnipotence based upon a point made by John D. Barrow in Impossibility, drawing on the work of cognitive scientist Donald Mackay. To put it into simple terms, it might be easier to state it as follows:

The Continued Quest for a Historical Jesus

Jesus research is in a new and exciting period. There is the Renewed New Quest and the Third Quest for a Historical Jesus. Many are very optimistic with theses conflicting but complimentary movements.  The Renewed Quest sees a non-Jewish Jesus and comes from the Jesus Seminar of Robert Funk.

By This Time Monday DC Will Be #1 in Biblioblogger Rankings

I've always suspected that Jim West and Joel Watts had a higher ranking than their comments indicated. Why, for instance, did Joel have 1/10th the number of comments that DC did if he outnumbered DC in hits? I loathed the way Jim West continually crowed about being number one and I promise I will not do the same. But it'll be nice to unseat them both. Their days of crowing are over. Thanks goes to the new effort to have a legitimate hit count where I climbed 2000 hits more than Joel in one day:

Atheist Tom Verenna Defends Jim West

Just when I thought the Biblioblogger world couldn't get any crazier I was wrong. Link. I have never, ever, even in jest said we should go back to the days when they threw Christians to the lions, and I would be repulsed by such a thought too. What is it he just doesn't get?

Biblioblogger Jim (Unaccredited) West's Proposal for Dealing with Heretics

My ‘modest proposal’ for dealing with heretics: public drownings in the summer (so the spray cools us) and burnings in the winter (so we can warm ourselves on the boiling blistering flesh of the godless). Link

He claims this is humor, tongue-in-cheek, but this isn't funny. The church really did this to people like me. And it's utterly ignorant since yesterday's heresy is today's orthodoxy. What if he joked about lynching blacks? Is that a laughing matter? If civility is a new criteria for inclusion as a Biblioblogger then I demand an apology to atheists, or kick Jim West off the Biblioblogger list. And I see no reason for him not to be fired from being a Professor of Biblical Studies at Quartz Hill School of Theology. Am I overreacting? I think not. This is hate speech.

SBL's New Biblioblogger Ranking System Shows DC Rules!

Switching from Alexa to a new system where we place badges in the sidebar to keep track of actual hits seems to be working fine. I got my badge 2-3 days ago. Previously I had expressed unwarranted fears about the change. But as you can tell below, I don't have them anymore. DC rules! Well, almost. ;-)

Genesis 3-Thank "God" for the Snake

Genesis 3 is a very important chapter in the bible. It has helped shape and re-shape Christian views on human nature, the state of the world and the relationship between good and evil. It has affected and influenced philosophers, theologians, writers, politicians, historians, artists and the average person on the street. When I examine Genesis 3 I see a story that has been paramount in underwriting the conflict between faith and free thought, which has raged throughout history. This story serves as a precedent for religion’s continuous attempts to suppress reason among its followers and for its attack on anyone brave enough to examine their god and their faith through the lens of rational thought.

How we Create Illusions Like a Soul and Thought

I think "external material world" is a dualistic habit we continue to carry from religious language. It presupposes that there is some homunculus that is presented the external world in a mental theatre inside our head. But it serves our syntax well . The use of a subject and predicate places the I in the brain by tradition. Our language almost insures it. But if we posit a monism would not the only difference between a physical monisim and a mental one be semantics? What would be the means of comparison? What is internal to that mental "external world?"  Does the idea of a spirit comes form all of this?