A Tale of Two Deathbeds

Pushing the ‘eternal life’ gimmick

Actor Matthew McConaughey provided one of the most cringe-worth moments in recent Academy Awards memory, as he accepted an Oscar in 2014. We atheists are often advised by believers to “keep quiet” about our denial of God, but the pious don’t set such a fine example. McConaughey told his worldwide audience:

“First off [pointing up], I want to thank God, ‘cause that’s who I look up to. He has graced my life with opportunities that I know are not of my hand or any other human hand…when you’ve got God you’ve got friend...”

Well, isn’t that special. The case can be made that millions of humans haven’t been noticed—let alone graced—by God; every day they face crippling poverty and starvation, deadly disease and the brutalities of war. But Lucky Matthew: God has thrown opportunities his way. Somehow Matthew got to be one of the centers of God’s universe.

Apologists Aren't Happy With the Internet. Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 11

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others]. I'm doing this online for all to see. I like it. Christian apologists don't.

William Lane Craig picks a question of the week to answer on his Reasonable Faith website. On October 21, 2013 he wrote an answer to a Christian who was in the throes of doubt due to the writings of David G. McAfee. He or she wrote:

How Can We Decide Between Experts? Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 10

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others]. Mittelberg had argued we need authorities since we cannot be experts in everything. So the "question is not if we'll be under authority, but which authorities we'll trust and respond to?" (p. 66) When some red flags go up we need to consider second opinions and better authorities. Trust! That is a key point. Who ya gonna trust?

I'm talking about experts with regard to the truth and their level of competence. What are we to do when experts disagree? How can we non-experts choose between experts? Do we have to be experts to choose between experts? There is a whole lot of literature to sift through on these questions.

Are There Any Real Ex-Christians?

[The above question came up in the comments section today. The following, adapted from one of my old blog posts, looks at Eric Hovind's use of it in debates with ex-believers.]

Eric Hovind uses the “you were never a real Christian” strategy to great effect, as can be seen HERE.

The Authoritarian Violent Path to Faith. Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 9

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others]. In this post I'm going to write on a path to faith Mittelberg didn't mention, and probably didn't even think about. I previously wrote about the Authoritarian Path to Faith, i.e., "Truth Is What You've Always Been Told You Must Believe", which is being required to believe authority figures. However, being required to have "blind obedience" to "unquestioned authority" is bad, and very dangerous.

But being forced to believe under the threat of torture or death is so much worse. Any faith that does this is unworthy of belief. Period. There are no circumstances where this can be morally justified. So if any religion does this to gain converts, especially over the course of centuries and sanctioned by an overwhelming number of its intellectuals, leaders and practitioners, then such a religion should be discarded forever into the dustbin of history. At no point would a loving omniscient God allow his people to think this was a good thing to do. So if such a god cannot help his people refrain from doing this to others, he cannot do anything else in human history either, including starting such a religion in the first place.

The Top Three Christian Apologetics Books As Recommended By Some Top Apologists

Here's a listing of the top three Christian apologetics books. Several Christians and apologists were asked for their recommendations. Then the top three books were compiled from their suggestions. Of those who comment here from time to time, neither David Marshall, Victor Reppert nor Randal Rauder's books made the list.

When it comes to recommended book lists, my first book ranked as the top atheist book of the last decade on one of them! Kinda humbling but kinda cool too.

Hoisting Mittelberg By His Own Petard: The Authoritarian Path to Faith. Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 8

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others]. Mittelberg discusses Six Paths of Faith in his book. In this post I"m going to write on the third path below: "Truth Is What You've Always Been Told You Must Believe".

1) The Relativistic Path: "Truth is Whatever Works for You"
2) The Traditional Faith Path: "Truth is What You've Always Been Taught"
3) The Authoritarian Faith Path: "Truth Is What You've Always Been Told You Must Believe"
4) The Intuitive Faith Path" "Truth Is What You Feel In Your Heart"
5) The Mystical Faith Path" "Truth Is What You Think God Told You"
6) The Evidential Faith Path: "Truth Is What Logic and Evidence Point To"

If you think #3 the Authoritarian Path of faith is the same as #2 the Traditional Path of faith, I'm with you. Still it probably deserves a separate chapter since they bring up different issues. Mittelberg distinguishes between them: The Traditional Path of faith (#2) is more of a religious tradition passed down to children from generation to generation that is passively received, whereas the Authoritarian path (#3) is based on "submission to a religious leader--past or present--and the ideas that leader holds up as the standard to live by." (p. 61) It's being required to believe authority figures. Being required to have "blind obedience" to "unquestioned authority" is bad, and very dangerous.

Bad Bible Theology: Paul’s Letter to the Romans

Let me count the ways...that Paul got it wrong

Between April and December 2017, here on the Debunking Christianity blog, I published seventeen articles on Paul’s most famous letter, one of the charter documents of the Christian faith. There was an introductory article, and then one on each of the sixteen charters of the letter.

One reader requested a handy list of the links to all of them, so here it is.

I will shortly begin work in earnest on my next book, Bad Bible Theology: An Atheist Refutation of the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

Revelation, Imagination...or Hallucination?

The Bible as Word of God, Fatal Flaw #1

One of the most extraordinary claims made by Christians is that God’s only means of communicating with the world is through the mammalian brain of one species. Yes, think about it, that’s it: the three or four pounds of living matter in our skulls. We’re told, of course, that there are several forms of divine revelation, e.g., answered prayer, visions, scripture. But there’s no way to get around it: all of these emerge from human brains; they come out of our heads.

Well, the concept doesn’t work, and it’s not hard to spot the flaws. Why would an all-powerful god, who—you would think—wants to get unambiguous messages across to human beings, have set things up in such slipshod fashion? Couldn’t he have done better? It might have been Carl Sagan who suggested that, instead, a savvy deity could flash messages on a planet-sized billboard on the Moon; that way we could get clear, up-to-date directives from the Overlord of the Cosmos.

The Evidential Value of Conversion/Deconversion Stories. Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 7

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others].

I want to digress a bit for this post to discuss the value of personal conversion/deconversion stories. [Nomenclature: A conversion story is one which an atheist or nonbeliever becomes a Christian. A deconversion story is one in which a Christian becomes a non-believer or atheist.] In Mittelberg's book, conversion stories seem to play an important role. He discusses the apostle Paul's Damascus Road conversion experience, who was a persecutor of the church then a believer. Then there's Augustine of Hippo's conversion, from out of the pagan religion of Manichaeism. Jumping to our time he tells us of Lee Strobel, an atheist who turned evangelical, and the late Nabeel Qureshi, who was a Muslim but later became an evangelical after discussions with David Wood, who has his own shocking conversion story from atheist to evangelical Christian (which has 825K hits so far!). There is Mark Mittelberg's own story in this book, from a doubter to a confident Christian. He mentions other nonbelievers who became Christians, like Simon Greeleaf, Frank Morison (A.K.A. Albert Henry Ross), C.S. Lewis and Josh McDowell. Mittelberg also exploits the late Antony Flew's story (pp. 144-145), who was an atheist philosopher but came to believe in a deistic creator of the universe (but nothing more).

Mittelberg never tells any Christian-to-atheist deconversion stories. He just tells atheist-to-Christian conversion stories (plus Antony Flew's story). Should we fault him for not telling any deconversion stories? Yes, I think so! For it means he's not offering readers any evidence to consider, but rather trying to persuade them to believe based on the conclusions others reached. His faulty line of reasoning goes this: since atheist person X became a Christian, you should too. Why should that matter? He had asked readers to follow the evidence for themselves. But by putting forth several stories of skeptic/atheist conversions to Christianity he's not actually presenting any objective evidence for the readers to consider. Instead, he's presenting the conclusions of others about the evidence, which is arguing by authority, the very thing he questions later. He had also asked readers to follow logic. But by adopting the conclusion of others just because they adopted it is not logical. Why not just present the evidence? The stories are a propaganda technique designed purposefully to persuade.

Out-of-Body Experiences

One common type of near-death experience is the out-of-body experience, which often involves seeing one’s own body from above. But even though they’re common, how good are they as evidence that a non-physical mind or spirit can actually exit the body?

Well, for one thing none of these experiences has, so far as I know, ever been scientifically confirmed as an actual out-of-body event. At best, the evidence has been inconclusive, as in the case of the widely-reported AWARE study. In addition, there are reasonable alternative explanations for such experiences (in part arising from the fact that the experiences occur in many different situations, such as during sensory deprivation or as a result of hallucinogenic drugs). A third consideration that isn’t as often discussed, though, is this: how a priori reasonable is the claim that these are actual out-of-body events? Or, to put it in Bayesian terms, what is its prior probability?

Traditional Faith? Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 6

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith: Building a Firm Foundation for Your Belief (2013)—which won the Outreach Magazine's 2014 apologetics book of the year award. So far his book has been flying under the atheist radar. I aim to rectify that with a few posts offering my thoughts and criticisms of it. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others].

The Six Paths of Faith are as follows, of which I'll deal with the second one below:

1) The Relativistic Path: "Truth is Whatever Works for You"
2) The Traditional Faith Path: "Truth is What You've Always Been Taught"
3) The Authoritarian Faith Path: "Truth Is What You've Always Been Told You Must Believe"
4) The Intuitive Faith Path" "Truth Is What You Feel In Your Heart"
5) The Mystical Faith Path" "Truth Is What You Think God Told You"
6) The Evidential Faith Path: "Truth Is What Logic and Evidence Point To"

Pragmatism? Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 5

I'm reviewing Mark Mittelberg's book Confident Faith: Building a Firm Foundation for Your Belief (2013)—which won the Outreach Magazine's 2014 apologetics book of the year award. So far his book has been flying under the atheist radar. I aim to rectify that with a few posts offering my thoughts and criticisms of it. [See the "Mark Mittelberg" tag below for others]

In Part One of his book the author discusses Six Paths of Faith, which represent the "criteria" readers are using to base their beliefs on, the goal of which is to get readers to reassess their faith. Hopefully though, readers don't do as Mittelberg did, since when he decided to reassess his faith due to the questioning of a college professor, he decided not to truly reassess it. In his words: "My Christian conclusions were, I'm convinced, correct, so I needed to go back and shore up the foundations underlying my faith." (p. 21) If that's what reassessing one's faith is about, Muslims would end up shoring up their faith as would Hindus, and almost everyone else. That's because, as Warren Buffett tells us, “What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.” [Quoted in Confirmation Bias: Why You Should Seek Out Disconfirming Evidence.] In fact, it's worse than that. The brain treats questions about beliefs just exactly like they're physical threats to its host. This means you must really want to know the truth in order to find it. You must force your brain to go against what it tells you to do. The only way to properly reassess one's childhood indoctrinated faith is to treat it as an outsider would, a non-believer, by requiring--no demanding--nothing less than sufficient objective publicly verifiable evidence for your faith, the same kind of evidence you would require of any ancient Chinese religion that made a claim about a virgin giving birth to an incarnate god. Think about this. What would it require? I've said agnosticism is the default outsider perspective, but one could also say if you're a Christian, treat your faith as if you're non-Christian, if you're a Muslim, treat your faith as if you're a non-Muslim, and so forth.

My Latest Definition of Faith

I was asked to define faith. So I said: It's accepting an extraordinary claim as true, such as a virgin having birthed an incarnate son of God, without sufficient objective publicly verifiable evidence, or even the need for sufficient objective publicly verifiable evidence.

Then I was asked what I mean by objective evidence. So I said:

That's your problem. You don't know what evidence looks like. That's a main point of mine. Just imagine what would convince you of such a claim in today's world. THAT!

Or just imagine what it would take for you to believe the same claim coming from an ancient Chinese religion. THAT!

Your brain is hard wired to believe. You must train it against its evolved tendencies to require hard evidence when someone, anyone, claims a virgin gave birth to an incarnate god, especially in the ancient world. There is an abundance of psychological evidence showing this. In other words. your brain is not functioning properly when it comes to truth. We know this. And we know the solution too!

Why Can't Christians Get Along With Each Other?

Less than a mile from my house, the construction of a church is taking place. This new house for a god, a rather modest structure, stands in front of a much larger church and across the street from an even bigger church. Three buildings designed with one thing in mind, to provide a venue where Christians can fellowship with one another. Three conflicting interpretations of god’s will for humanity, making it apparently impossible for the members of these churches to congregate under one roof together. Yet, all claim to offer guidance to those who seek a spiritual life. The resources dumped into these three structures alone could have fed and sheltered many of our homeless in a city of churches that has far too many poor people. Yes, the town where I live is often referred to as the city of churches. There’s always room for another church it would seem. 

Dr. Chris Gadsden Argues Maybe Jesus Really Does Talk to VP Mike Pence

In his own words Chris Gadsden tells us about himself:

"I have earned two master’s degrees and one PhD in philosophy over 14 years of study, combined with 20+ years experience of campus ministry (Cru) and teaching (as an adjunct instructor)...I am passionate about helping people learn to think and believe better, though...I won’t pretend to be neutral about religion. Good thinking leads us to truth, whatever that truth may be."

Earlier we were told by a former White House aide that Vice President Mike Pence believes Jesus is talking to him and telling him what to say. Dr. Gadsden has written an essay in response, where he considers how Christians can evaluate claims like “God spoke to me?” I've met Dr. Gadsden and he's a really nice guy, even to atheists. But it's time for him to get educated, and I'm just the guy to teach him.

Quote of the Day On Chronological Snobbery

I just read something that reminded me Victor Reppert. He has repeatedly used the "chronological snob" straw-man aphorism against me (coined by C.S. Lewis) simply because I say some belief is no longer respected in today's world. But this is a misuse of the aphorism, if it can ever be used at all. For I also provide reasons why said beliefs are no longer respected.

Chronological snobbery doesn’t apply to any criticism or rejection of thinking from previous eras. If that’s the case, we’re all chronological snobs. If your doctor tried to treat your cancer with leeches, you wouldn’t be snobbish to object because we now know better. If your neighbor told you that the biblical story of Noah’s son Ham proves that some races are superior, you wouldn’t be snobbish to reject that theology because we now know better.

Chronological snobbery refers to the notion that all ideas from previous eras are inferior because they are old and that modern ideas are superior because they are new. And, frankly, I don’t know anyone who actually believes this. I certainly don’t. --by Jonathan Merritt, "The truth about ‘chronological snobbery’"

Did Jesus Graduate from Hogwarts?

Mark, Chapter 1: The problems pile on, right from the start

The gospel of Mark is second in the iconic line-up of Jesus stories, but it’s universally agreed among New Testament scholars that Mark was written first; it’s not hard to tell that Matthew and Luke used it as a source. Well, let’s be honest: they copied most of it, without telling what they’d done. Today we call that plagiarism. Literary sin, however, is not our biggest worry. We have no idea what Mark’s sources were, which makes it virtually impossible to trust it as history.

Of course, it’s hard to get believers to think critically about the gospels. The aura of holiness hangs over them; congregations have traditionally stood to hear excerpts read aloud, under the glow of stained glass. This mystique blunts common sense and deflects curiosity. “What really happened?” is rarely asked.

Recent Political/Social Issues With Commentary

After the recent Florida school killings "Thoughts and prayers aren't helping", said sports host Jim Rome, who admitted he didn't have the solution to mass shootings...“But I know what is not the answer: just saying thoughts and prayers,” he said. “Something has to be done. This is not normal and we’re allowing it to become normal.” LINK.
-----

A writer quotes every GOP lawmaker’s post-Florida "thoughts and prayers" tweet — and how much money they took from the NRA.
-----

A NY Times article says the reason America has so many mass killings is because we have too many guns. But why do we have so many guns? See criminologist Elicka Peterson Sparks's book, The Devil You Know: The Surprising Link between Conservative Christianity and Crime, for the answer.
-----

As a democratic Hoosier in Indiana I've been warning people they should be more concerned if Mike Pence became our President. Now we learn he believes Jesus talks to him. Here's the money quote by reality star Omarosa, who served as a White House aide and is an ordained minister:

“As bad as y’all think Trump is, you would be worried about Pence,” she said. “So everybody that’s wishing for impeachment might want to reconsider their lives. We would be begging for days of Trump back if Pence became president.” Why? “He’s extreme,” Omarosa said of the vice president. “I’m Christian. I love Jesus. But he thinks Jesus tells him to say things. I’m like, ‘Jesus ain’t saying that.’" LINK.
-----

While nothing will come of it, this message should be heard loud and clear! Because Larry Nassar was allowed free reign to sexually assault many of our Olympic athletes, Travis Waldron argues the United States should be banned from the Olympics. LINK.
-----

Lastly, here's what I wrote on the issue of free speech on campus. It's my first volley on that hot topic:

Facebook Discussion About Atheism with Matt McCormick, Alonzo Fyfe, David Eller, Richard C. Miller, Spencer Hawkins and Myself

It's a good one. I'll just link to it.

Do We Have Free Will? Part 4: Neither Caused nor Random

So far, we have looked at three arguments against the existence of free will, each one based on a different type of determinism. But there is another reason for denying freedom of the will: the concept itself appears to make no sense. In this fourth and final part, I explain why.

How Much Do Believers Trust in a God?

I can remember it like it was yesterday, my father debating with a Christian from another sect about what it means to be a follower of Christ. 

He loved challenging believers from other churches, largely because he didn’t think they were real Christians. Most were far to “worldly’ to qualify in his opinion. This time, the point being made was about trusting in a god. So, he dared them to go home, get out their insurance policy, hold it up to the heavens and then say, “God, I trust you.”

What Does the Word Atheism Mean? Who or What is an Atheist?

Another discussion on Facebook. This time with Spencer Hawkins about the word atheism.

Christians Can Figure It Out: the Bible Isn’t God’s Word

Part 1 of 6: The Bible is not self-authenticating

Those intrepid Gideons claim that they are dedicated to “making the Word of God available to everyone.” The American Bible Society doesn’t hesitate to call its product “God’s Word.” Behind this positioning is a PR campaign that has endured for centuries, fueled, of course, by that famous text, 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

“All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”

In this text, the words “inspired by God” translate God-breathed. So, “God’s Word” isn’t far off the mark, in terms of nailing the concept.

Why Do Christians Believe? Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 4

Mark Mittelberg

Mark Mittelberg is a bestselling author, sought-after speaker, and the Executive Director of the Center for Strategic Evangelism, in partnership with Houston Baptist University. He wrote the book Confident Faith: Building a Firm Foundation for Your Belief (2013)—which won the Outreach Magazine's 2014 apologetics book of the year award. Yet, it appears his book has been flying under the atheist radar—so far. I aim to rectify that with a few posts offering my thoughts and criticisms of it. I found Mark’s book recently in a Goodwill store for $1. That was a lucky find. Thank Good...will.

Mittelberg begins his book in Part 1, "Six Paths of Faith", by speaking about approaches, or methods readers adopt to embrace their respective faiths (remember, *cough* he says we all have faith). "This is crucial" he says, "because the method (or methods) you use in deciding what to believe has a huge bearing on what those beliefs will actually be, as well as how confident you'll be in holding on to them." (p. 9) "Most people never consider this" he goes on to say. "They just arbitrarily adopt an approach--or adopt one that's been handed to them--and uncritically employ it to choose a set of beliefs that may or may not really add up." (p. 10)