BBC Program "Phantoms in the Brain" Hosted by V.S. Ramachandran

This is an episode from a BBC program hosted by neurologist V.S. Ramachandran that explains his key findings in certain instances of brain damage that have long been viewed as mere curiosities by the scientific community.

Is William Lane Craig Dishonest With the Facts? I've Drawn a Line in the Sand.

Most people know that I defend William Lane Craig against the charge that he is dishonest as an apologist. Among skeptics I am his biggest defender, perhaps the only one. But I have just asked him three questions about the inner witness of the Holy Spirit that if he refuses to answer I can only conclude he is not being honest with the facts, and will defend him no more. He might have other reasons for not answering them, but I can only conclude he can't do so reasonably. Here they are:

*Sigh* The Inner Witness of the Spirit Again

Christian, do you agree that objective evidence is external to the knower and can be verified by a third party at least in principle? Yes or no? How then can any third party verify a claim such as someone else's inner witness of the Spirit? At least someone's claim to be abducted by aliens is able to be verified in principle by a third party. Anyone in any religion or sect within one can claim to have had a veridical religious experience. These claims are a dime a dozen when they cannot be verified even in principle by a third party. That makes all of these claims subject to the charge of delusion, and as such, no evidence at all EVEN TO SOMEONE WHO CLAIMS TO HAVE HAD ONE! Q.E.D.

The 2011 About.com Readers' Choice Awards for Agnosticism / Atheism

[Edit: just a reminder] You can nominate your favorite book, blog, podcast, community, Ad and so forth, until February 15th, right here. Then you can vote for your favorites from February 22nd until March 21st. Winners will be announced March 30, 2012. My anthology The Christian Delusion won last year. With the publication in 2011 of The End of Christianity I'm hoping it could win this year. Nominate away. The more nominations it gets the better chance it will be selected for the voting that follows.

Richard Carrier's Book "Why I am Not a Christian" is Excellent!

Carrier's book can be found here,which I highly recommend. Here's a brief summary of it:

Bradley Bowen: "the devil is in the details"

Before reading what he wrote, Bowen tells us about himself:

I was a devout Evangelical Christian from 1970 to 1982. The study of philosophy, especially philosophy of religion, led me to see that my Christian faith was founded on weak and faulty arguments. I followed where reason led me, and left Christianity in favor of skepticism, critical thinking, and a secular humanist worldview. Background in Philosophy - B.A. in philosophy from Sonoma State University. M.A. in philosophy from University of Windsor. Candidate for PhD in philosophy from University of California at Santa Barbara.

What Are the Chances That Christianity is True?

;-)

An Interview With Richard Carrier About His Book, "Proving History"

Richard Carrier has kindly agreed to answer some questions I posed after reading his soon to be released book Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. 2012). This book introduces Bayes’s Theorem as a basis for assessing whether or not Jesus existed, a subject he will deal with in a forthcoming book titled, “On the Historicity of Jesus Christ.”

Quote of the Day, by articulett on the OTF ;-)

You can believe whatever goofy shit you want-- but if you want us to take your beliefs more seriously than you take the goofy shit that others believe in, you would need to give us the kind of evidence that you would require from them to take their beliefs seriously.

You Can Now Pre-Order My Revised Book, WIBA

Click here: Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity.It has 536 pages, a 110 more than the previous edition. It's such a massive revision my publisher is treating it as a new book.

Jesus Christ, CEO, By Dr. Hector Avalos

Faith-based companies are "courting" legal troubles, he argues.

Chris Hallquist: Does Dr. Craig Win All His Debates?

Chris describes himself as one having "a masters degree in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, but hates academic philosophy." I like that. From my experience there is either scientifically informed philosophy or there is scientifically uninformed philosophy. Scientifically uninformed philosophy is a crock, and that's my philosophy. The problem is that way too much academic philosophy is scientifically uninformed. That's why I don't place too much value on it as I've said. Now on to Chris on whether Dr. Craig wins all his debates:

Is Scientific Evidence Enough To Show That A Miracle Didn't Happen?

I previously endorsed Richard Carrier's "slam dunk" case against a solar eclipse at the death of Jesus. But an interesting discussion took place in the comments concerning scientific evidence and miracles. Here it is for further discussion.

Quote of the Day, by Kel

Self-authenticating private evidence is useless,
because it is indistinguishable from the illusion of it.

An Explanation About the Books I Recommend

There are lots of books not listed in my sidebar. So let me explain my choices since some authors might feel slighted for not seeing their book listed. Hint: It probably means nothing at all.

There are other considerations.

I have not read everything. There are a lot of books I have not heard about yet. There are more being published every week, especially ebooks. And keep in mind I don't have the space in the sidebar to list all of the books I know. Furthermore, I have tested some books but they don't sell well here. Books that don't sell I don't keep on the list. Books that sell well factor in my choices. There are even a few books I place in the sidebar because they are important to be aware of, although I might not agree with some important aspects in them.

I hope this helps. If your book isn't listed it probably means nothing at all. Cheers.

------------------

If you'd like to recommend a book or two or more, do so below and tell us why you recommend it.

Defending Christianity Depends on Fallacious Reasoning

Christian apologists probably violate every informal fallacy at some point or another in order to defend their faith. See for yourselves:

About.com Agnosticism/Atheism: Logical Fallacies FAQ.

No Beliefs: List of common fallacies.

Humbug: The Skeptic's Field Guide.

The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe: Top 20 Logical Fallacies.

How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age.

Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole.

William Lane Craig: "Christian belief is not based on the historical evidence."

This is the very last sentence Craig writes that can be read here, which is his conclusion after dealing with the problem of Lessing's Ugly Broad Ditch. This is where I think Christians are impaled on the horns of a dilemma. Let me explain.

Delusional on a Grand Scale: Assessing The Inner Witness of the Spirit

William Lane Craig claims the inner witness of the Spirit "trumps all other evidence." It is "an intrinsic defeater-defeater" for anyone who experiences to it. So even if I don't have that witness, and even if I don't like the idea of such a witness, I'm in no position to judge that he does not possess it. Craig claims this inner witness provides all the evidence he needs to know Jesus personally and that Jesus is his savior. This witness is sufficient for him. It defeats any evidence to the contrary as utterly irrelevant. But this is delusional on a grand scale. How do you convince a delusional person like this? I probably can't. That's the power of a delusion like this. So for people not impervious to reason let me speak to them. What Craig is doing is sophistry plain and simple. He's describing a subjective experience and claiming it's an objective veridical experience that defeats all other objective evidence. Now it's one thing to say a subjective experience is to be considered objective evidence, as delusional as that is. It's another thing entirely to say a subjective experience carries more weight than all objective evidence. People wonder why I call Christians delusional. You need not wonder any more.

Richard Carrier On The Eclipse of the Sun At The Death of Jesus

I've received an uncorrected advance reading copy of Richard Carrier's book Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus. I'll say more about it later after I've finished reading it. But he highlights a serious problem for inerrantists that I'd like to share. In chapter three he evaluates the claim of the gospels that at the death of Jesus "there was darkness over the whole world from the sixth hour until the ninth" (Mark 15:33; Matthew 27:45; Luke 23:44-45). If it was meant to be taken literally per Luke, who claims it was an eclipse of the sun ("...for the sun stopped shining"), it could not have happened.

"Why We Must Treat the Bible No Differently Than Any Other Book" By Biblical Scholar James A. Metzger

...many theologians and biblical scholars continue to speak of the Christian God in only the most sterling manner: as, for instance, all-loving, just, infinitely wise, and inexhaustibly merciful. But this is not the God of the Bible – not even close. If that were the God of the Bible, I would retain little respect for its authors, who would have proven themselves far more interested in promoting a fiction they liked than in bearing witness to the terrible, unpredictable Power they felt best accounted for (often unseemly) facts on the ground. There’s just no way that the omnibenevolent, all-wise Sovereign of traditional Christianity created and presides over this place. No, if there’s a God at all, he’s likely just the sort we find in the Bible – magnanimous and cruel, loving and spiteful, noble and base, impulsive and deliberate, intelligent and incompetent, responsible and spectacularly negligent. A little like us, in fact, but with a lot more power. Link

"On Visions and Resurrections" by Gary J. Whittenberger

The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that the hallucination hypothesis is a plausible explanation of the post-crucifixion “appearances” of Jesus, and to defend it against some of the current criticisms of Christian apologists. Link

The Empty Rhetoric of Christian Apologists

Previously I described several deceptive apologetic strategies. I want to highlight one more: The use of empty rhetoric utterly lacking in substance.

Dr. Avalos challenges the claim that our country was founded as a "Christian nation."

Dr. Avalos has a guest editorial in politically-influential The Des Moines Register that challenges this claim put forth by a previous letter. Read Hector's response right here. He's right! But even if he is wrong, which he is not, there is no going back in time. Many Christians themselves support a secular government, and for good reasons.

Julian Haydon Writes to His Nephew

You have probably never heard of Julian but he is one of the unsung heroes among skeptics. Here we see him writing his nephew on Adam's supposed free choice in the garden.

Not Even an Omniscient God Could Convince Me That I Willfully Reject Christianity Against the Overwhelming Evidence

I cannot conceive of an omniscient God being able to do this given all that I know about Christianity, the Bible, theology, philosophy, science, and the history of the church. For God to do this he would have to re-create this universe and basically rewrite history itself. But what is done is done. If however, it takes omniscience (or near omniscience) to show the Christian faith is true, then God should also know that without it I could not think otherwise. I might be wrong. But not even an omniscient God can show me that I willfully reject Christianity against the overwhelming evidence given that I am not omniscient and given what I find in this world. What the evidence leads me to think is that the Christian faith is wildly improbable.