The Case Against Miracles

I'm done writing and editing books, so I'm highlighting each one of them in thirteen separate posts. This time we look at The Case against Miracles. [See Tag Below]

After a two year break from producing another anthology (2017-18), due mostly to dating and marrying my wife Sheila. I finally decided to do one again. My decision came from debates on Facebook with Richard Carrier and Matthew Ferguson over the use of Bayes' Theorem in assessing miracles, plus the prodding of Richard Miller (who now posts here at DC). Dr. Miller and I were going to co-edit the book together but it just didn't work out. I thank him for prodding me to do it, and I think the book might have been better if it had worked out.

Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist?

I'm done writing and editing books, so I'm highlighting each one of them in thirteen separate posts. This time it's Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist? [See Tag Below].

Here is the Amazon link to get this "sure to be a classic" book, right here!

You should read the text of my talk at the Global Center for Religious Research eConference on Jesus Mythicism, which includes my Preface at the end of it. 

There were a few challenges in this book. 

Zuckerman: Phil Zuckerman asked me why I chose to co-edit a book with Robert M. Price, a known supporter of Donald Trump. Well actually, Bob choose me to co-write it. After editing an anthology on The Empty Tomb more than a decade ago, he didn't want to do that again. So Bob asked me. He already had most of the authors. What I did was to acquire two additional authors and get it published. He already knew this is the kind of thing I do well from previous anthologies.

My Book, Debating Christianity

I'm done writing and editing books so I've been highlighting each of them.

My last book "Debating Christianity" was skillfully put together by my friend Jonathan Pearce. [See Tag Below]

Required Homework for Christians

Trying to get them to read, study, ponder the Bible

One of the old hymns I recall from my Methodist upbringing is Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, which includes these words: “What a blessedness, what a peace is mine, leaning on the everlasting arms. Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms…” Safe and secure. This security inside the Christian shelter can happen when doubts are denied, when troublesome thoughts are dismissed: “Our priests and preachers must have it right. We believed them when we were toddlers, so why be suspicious now? We’ll keep the faith.” Take it on faith.

The Dangers of Christian Theology

“The violent ideology of Christian nationalism”

If you’re as old as I am—born in 1942—you may remember Dinah Shore singing the famous car commercial on television in the 1950s. The song includes these lyrics: 

 

“See the USA in your Chevrolet, America is asking you to call, drive your Chevrolet through the USA, America’s the greatest land of all…” 

 

We had no doubt that America was the greatest land, a sentiment that fueled our patriotism at the time. But we didn’t really think about it. As kids we also played “cowboys and Indians”—however, it never dawned on us that it was through massive genocide of native Americans that European descendants took possession of what is now the USA. Nor did we give much thought to the role that slavery played in the unfolding of American history. Slavery impacted how the US constitution was written; it provoked a bloody civil war, and left an ugly legacy of racism, which still poisons our society.

Michael Shermer: "The Non-Magisterium of Religion: Why Faith Is Not a Reliable Method for Determining Moral Values"

Shermer makes this point extremely well, and it's a very important one. Since faith is not a reliable method for determining moral values we must figure it out ourselves. Period. End of story. Don't ask where we get our morals from. We derive them out of the need for other people, our families, friends, communities, counties and our world, without which life on our planet could be chaotic, unstable and miserable. An extremely large part of dysfunction and chaos comes from using faith as a guide to morals. THIS MUST STOP! LINK.

Buddha, Abraham, Jesus and Muhammed: Larger-than-life historic figures or largely legends?

Thank you David Fitzgerald and Valerie Tarico for this informative essay! LINK.

Finally, As Promised, Open Thread!

Tell us what you've been thinking about, researching, or doing lately. Anything you want to share is fine with me. GO!

Dave Warnock Interviewed Me

Mark Mittelberg On 7 More Arrows That Point To The Bible, Part 18

I'm still working through Mark Mittelberg's apologetical book. It's a good one, better than most in that it's a unique, easily accessible one for popular readers, and better than Lee Strobel's type of books. Click on Mark's name below to see where we've been so far. Now on with the show for his chapter 11, where he shares 7 more arrows that point to the Bible as true. No, I'm not going to be comprehensive in responding here.

A Discussion On Meaning, Value, And Purpose

This took place on William Lane Craig's Facebook wall.

John Loftus: There is meaning and value and purpose in life. There just isn't any ultimate meaning and value and purpose for all sentient beings who have existed, or currently exist, or will exist into the distant future.

On the First Easter Morning, Why Didn’t Jesus Knock on Pilate’s Door?

The fruitless search for extraordinary evidence

A few years ago, a Christian friend told me, after attending Easter morning service, that he had been so moved by the scriptural reading, I Corinthians 15, in which the apostle Paul claims that Jesus

 

“…was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.” (vv. 4-6)

How to Change the Minds of Believers, by John W. Loftus

How to Change the Minds of Believers by John W. Loftus

 

After spending nearly two decades trying to change the minds of Christian believers (my focus in what follows) I still don’t fully know how to do it. Regardless, I’ll share ten helpful tips for readers who, like me, want to bang your heads against a wall. I think it’s worth doing despite the low odds of success. For any success helps rid the world of the harms of religion. Besides, one of the greatest challenges is to change minds, and I like challenges. Plus, I’ve learned a great deal by attempting this important underappreciated task.

The Magisterium of Religion, by Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer recently wrote about his trip to Köln, Germany, where he stood amazed at "the magnificent cathedral in the city center that has defined the region for nearly eight centuries." [Photos included] Shermer says "It is a reminder of the power of faith in a pre-modern world lit only by fire and plagued by poverty, disease, misery, and early death." He really explains what it was like living in the latter Middle Ages, and how science displaced superstitious thinking. Awesome!

On this trip to the Cologne Cathedral I time-traveled back to the latter Middle Ages and into the late Medieval mind to imagine what it must have been like to experience the awe-inspiring magnificence of such a culturally-dominant edifice that literally and figuratively puts all other structures in the shade. Imagine walking into this sanctuary after a long and exhaustive journey from one’s provincial countryside and spartan abode....

To fully feel that world let’s go back to a time when civilization was lit only by fire, centuries ago when populations were sparse and 80 percent of everyone lived in the countryside and were engaged in food production, largely for themselves. Cottage industries were the only ones around in this pre-industrial and highly-stratified society, in which one-third to one-half of everyone lived at subsistence level and were chronically under-employed, underpaid, and undernourished. Food supplies were unpredictable and plagues decimated weakened populations. Read further here.

On Cameron Bertuzzi of "Capturing Christianity" Switching from Evangelicalism to Catholicism.

Evangelical Christians have been bailing ship in the last few decades. They have been moving to "mainstream" versions", "liberal" versions, and Catholic versions. The young ones are a growing group of the "nones" who don't embrace any organized religion at all.

There have been a few intellectual evangelical Christians who became Catholics in recent decades, most notably Francis Beckwith (b. 1960): A philosopher and theologian, he was elected president of the Evangelical Theological Society but converted to Catholicism in 2007.

I did a quick search and found conflicting accounts of the numbers of evangelicals who switched to Catholicism, as opposed to the numbers of Catholics who switched to Evangelicalism, without arriving at a firm conclusion.

Which brings me to Cameron Bertuzzi of the highly popular "Capturing Christianity" apologetics ministry. Ten days ago he announced that he's switching from evangelicalism to Catholicism. It's getting noticed with 76k hits so far.

Who or What Is God? You Go First

And provide the evidence for your answer

Carl Sagan was in high demand as a public speaker, and during the Q&A periods, he reports that a common question was, “Do you believe in God?” His response was to ask a question:

 

“Because the word God means many things to many people, I frequently reply by asking what the questioner means by ‘God.’ To my surprise, this response is often considered puzzling or unexpected: ‘Oh you know, God. Everyone knows who God is.’ Or ‘Well, kind of a force that is stronger than we are and exists everywhere in the universe.’ There are a number of such forces. One of them is called gravity, but it is not often identified with God. And not everyone does know what is meant by ‘God.’ The concept covers a wide range of ideas.” (pp. 181-182, Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science)

 

Oh you know, God. We live in a god-saturated culture. God in whom we can trust is on our money; the god whom we are under is in our pledge of allegiance; the Bible—god’s word—is in millions of hotel rooms. There are hundreds of thousands of churches built to the glory of god throughout the country. It’s hardly any wonder that people can say, Oh you know, God.

On Interpreting the Bible:

My conclusion is the Bible says what it says until refuted by reason, morality, and/or science, then it says something other than what it says. No joke!

Paul’s Christianity: Belief in Belief Itself, by John W. Loftus

I was honored to write the Foreword to Robert Conner's excellent new book The Jesus Cult: 2000 Years of the Last Days, which you can get on Amazon.

It was long, so understandedly Conner had to edit it down. Here it is in it's entirety.

Paul’s Christianity: Belief in Belief Itself

Citing plenty of Roman writers familiar with the early Jesus Cult, along with teasing out the true meaning from Christian sources, Robert Conner makes a solid case that “Christianity was a cult from its inception, a toxic brew of apocalyptic delusion, sexual phobias and fixations, with a hierarchy of control of women by men, of slaves by masters, and of society by the church.” It had an “irrational and antisocial nature” to it, and “its destructive features remain a clear and present danger today. Its greatest threat is the core feature of the Christian cult: belief in belief, the conviction that the Christian narrative is literally its own proof.”

To say I agree with Conner is a huge understatement. I love how he writes! Readers will find in his book a great amount of erudition combined with an unmatched use of rhetoric and even hilarity. I am honored and delighted to write this Foreword for another excellent book by him.

Connor says Christianity was nothing more than a cult “in the most pejorative sense of the word.” In the chapters to follow he makes his case, showing that religious cults share with Christianity “several familiar features” like “a fixation on sexual purity, bizarre interpretations of scripture, and often a preoccupation with End Times theology which leads members to interpret events through an apocalyptic lens.”

Darwin, Science, and the Origins of Life itself

Scientists like Darwin discovered evolution as an answer to why there are so many species, including human beings. It undercut the creation accounts in Genesis 1 & 2, Psalms 104, and Job 38-42, which can no longer be taken as straightforward accounts, but are now considered nonhistorical myths. The Bible can no longer be considered as a scientific textbook, to say the very least.

So the question of the origins of life itself is not something to be answered in the Bible. This question is proving to be as elusive as the origins of species. But if it is to be solved, scientists will solve it.

Q. Are we sure the Bible was ever specifically authored as a scientific text book?

A. It offers the pre-scientific mind knowledge about those areas it talks about. In Genesis we learn why people die, why there are rainbows, where rain comes from, and why snakes slither across land. We also learn that stars are hung in the firmament just above the mountains. They teach how the universe originated, which god created it, why women were subservient to men, why there is pain in childbirth, why we live with thorns, why work is hard, and why there are different languages. Just picture this before the rise of science that could dispute it all. God didn't know anything about the universe yet he allegedly created it.

Is It Possible Your Minister/Priest Doesn’t Believe in God?

What might have caused that to happen?

Here’s a sensational headline that would shock the world: Pope Resigns, Issuing a Statement that He No Longer Believes in God. But we’ll never see such a headline because, even if a pope stepped down because of nonbelief, the Vatican hierarchy wouldn’t allow such honesty. Other more palatable reasons would be given. I once asked a prominent Italian television journalist if it could possibly be true that the Vatican clergy really believed the theology-on-steroids that the church promotes, e.g. such wackiness as transubstantiation, the immaculate conception, Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven. He responded, “Oh, maybe half of them do. But don’t forget, it’s a business.”

Who Needs a Higher Power To Overcome Addiction?

My wife Sheila and I feed the homeless once a week. We do so in the parking lot of the rescue mission downtown out of the back of my old Jimmy. We have gotten to know some of the homeless and their stories.

We do it to help those in need. If one of them says anything like "God bless you" or "Thanks be to God", I tell him/her we're just being good. We don't believe in God.

One guy approached me recently and said he bought and read my book Why I Became an Atheist, and that it changed his life. "How so?" I asked. He said he no longer believes in God.

Now you might think this is a bad thing, since believing in God can help people down on their luck. Not so! AA hasn't helped him stay sober, neither has God, his higher power. So depending on God didn't work. He said it makes much better sense to rely on yourself. Relying on God is an excuse when you fail. God will also easily forgive you when you fail, and you know it.

Relying on himself forced him to take ownership of his own life, and decisions.

He's been sober about two months now. What we know is that so far he's doing better than he did when relying on a god.

Praise reason!

"Democracy Is On The Ballot" - Sen. Elizabeth Warren On Why The Stakes Are High In The Midterms

Please watch! Please vote! Please share! I'll be working at a poll station on Tuesday. This should be interesting. Do YOUR part!

Oligarchy: What's Really Wrong With America!

Here are two talks that tell us what's really wrong with the USA:

Christian Theology Can Be Part of the Problem of Evil

The apostle Paul and John Calvin did their fair share of damage          

Christians who are sure that the New Testament reveals a loving god aren’t paying close attention. One of the charter documents of the Christian faith is Paul’s Letter to the Romans. In the opening chapter we find a list of people who deserve to die, because they don’t acknowledge God. The list includes gossips and rebellious children, “…since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.” (Romans 1:28).  ^“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness…” (Romans 1:18) And there’s more: “...by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” (Romans 2:5) “…for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.” (Romans 2:8)

Psychic Epistemology: The Special Pleading of William Lane Craig

A new paper of mine was appropriately published at Halloween, over on Internet Infidels.

My focus in this paper is to expose the special pleading of William Lane Craig’s psychic epistemology (or spirit-guided epistemology) as I correctly call it—rather than reformed epistemology as it’s known. I consider this to be an extension of a book of mine, where I offer good advice to the Christian apologist. In part one, after questioning the need for apologetics and warning about the monumental challenges to it, I tell apologists to become honest life-long seekers of the truth, to get a good education in a good field of study, to accept nothing less than sufficient objective evidence, and especially to determine how to know which religion to defend. I offer good solid tongue-in-cheek advice for apologists.[1] LINK.