But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him. 1 John 2:27 (ESV)
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. John 14:26 (ESV)
I now report there is progress. The most ignorant criticisms of the OTF come from Christian scholars Matthew Flannagan and Mark Hanna. They are so bad, so delusional I only recommend them in so far as they show us how intelligent people with a delusion cannot even read with comprehension. The less ignorant criticisms of the OTF come from Victor Reppert, Randal Rauser and Thomas Talbot (all of whom were instructional to me in many ways). Maybe I'm going soft, but I think rather than taking a hard-line approach against Marshall it would be counter-productive for me to do so, since he embraces the OTF (with some caveats). I adjure my critics to read Marshall's chapter even though he is still wrong to claim Christianity passes the OTF. All I'm saying is that this is progress. I'll comment later on where he's wrong, but for now I recommend his chapter to my critics. Hopefully they will listen to him.Avalos will explore how scholars of Jesus divide themselves as historicists and mythicists. This lecture seeks to demonstrate that there is too little information from the time of Jesus to favor either side conclusively, and so agnosticism is the best position until more relevant new data can be acquired. LINK.
It's hot off the press. At least important authors and prestigious publishers are taking notice, and that is a good thing.I said "At least important authors and prestigious publishers are taking notice, and that is a good thing." Let me add that I know the Jesus presented in the canonical gospels did not exist, and that's good enough for me.Then I was asked if I have moved toward the Christ myth position. I responded:
I know less and less about any historical Jesus. But I have no dog in this race so I don't see the need to argue passionately about it either way. To me it's a non-issue and I'll sit back and listen to those who want to argue about it.
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| One composite reconstruction of biblical cosmology |
What does this do to liberal Christianity like that represented by Kimball and Spong? If the roots of their tree of faith are evil by their own standards, as they admit, then why do they still nest in that same tree? Continuing to do so is unreasonable, just like trying to incrementally reform the Klu Klux Clan from within. No, given the history of Christianity even their own particular Christian faith should be rejected, plain and simple.
With hindsight exegesis liberal believers reinvent their theology based on the lessons of history, rather than abandoning it. They need to take seriously that theirs is an evolved faith that began with religious violence and has been sustained by violence for at least 1800 years. Christianity is red with blood in tooth and in claw. Throughout most of its history violence was its theme, its program, and its method for converting people and keeping believers in the fold. Its history is a history of violence. There is no escaping this.
It looks very good if for no other reason than that the authors on the opposing side are good ones. The glaring problem however, is that the authors in this book who represent Christianity are, generally speaking, evangelicals. Evangelicals write the chapters on all the key issues defending "Christian Theism" in this book. One would expect this, since the book is edited by evangelicals. But why do they get to define "Christian Theism"? There is no such thing, as there is no such thing as "theism" or "Mere Christianity" either. These evangelicals are co-opting the term "Christian Theism" for themselves. The book title is a misnomer, even a fraud. It should be titled, "Debating Evangelicalism," or "Debating Evangelical Theism." If I were writing a chapter in this book and I had the space I would point this fraud out. There are only theisms, Christian theisms and Christianities. Below are the table of contents. See for yourself:
One of my last post looked at the external textual
evidence for a late post 200 BCE Old Testament text, especially when placed in
perspective with other real ancient Near Eastern texts. My next post will look internally at Hebrew
words to prove beyond any reasonable doubt, that the text known in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic
religions as the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), is purely a late fabrication
having more in common with the Book of Mormon than factual
history.
That's cool!
His book is quite popular, ranking in the top ten "apologetics" category of books on Amazon for several years now. However, Bryan Frances, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, outs him as either clueless, self-deceived or a fraud, in the Introduction of his book, Gratuitous Suffering and the Problem of Evil: A Comprehensive Introduction.
See for yourself: |
| Rev. Juan Valdes |
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| The Trinity (the illogical) Simplified (Or how to get away with calling polytheism monotheism.) |
Professor Lambert. These conversations are adversarial in nature because they are about the future of civilization. If rational people give into witch-doctors and superstition mongers, then humanity is f*cked and will quickly head towards extinction. This is rather like a cold war that could easily turn hot given the level, quantity and quality of superstition infecting Americans...It's OK for you to "believe by faith" what ever religious nonsense you like, just keep it out of the government and public schools.
