Sin: An Imaginary Problem with an Invented Solution

Picture right is the typical Salvation Gospel Tract found at bank ATM’s, left on tables at restaurants and ironically, in restrooms. This one was left under a wiper blade on my wife’s car at work by Freedom Baptist Church (as stamped on the back) located just a quarter mile from where she works.

The Irony of Faith And Serving God

Evangelist Dr. Oliver B. Green (Feb. 14, 1915 – July 26, 1976) was the president and founder of The Gospel Hour (still on many Christian stations today) who loved good fundamentalist Bible theology and defended the King James’ Version of Bible. Rev. Green preached solid Baptist's truth backed by eternal salvation for all true believers and eternal Hell fire for all non-believers. (I used to listen to him in the early ‘70s on my way to college where, as a Christian, I majored in Bible.) His website states:

What is Superstition? by Robert Ingersoll Part 1 of 4

Again I thank Julian Haydon for sending me these items from Ingersoll.

Lawrence Krauss on Caveman Common Sense

Prayer is NOT the Answer to Gun Violence

The Des Moines Register has published my latest editorial on the relationship of prayer to gun violence: Des Moines Register editorial.

Jerry Coyne on the Odd Couple: Why Science and Religion Shouldn't Cohabit

Why Randal Rauser is Impervious to Reason

To the left is a typical discussion with Dr. Randal Rauser on his blog (click to enlarge). It concerns how poorly he defended the historicity of the nativity narratives in the gospels against Jonathan Pearce. This isn't to deny he did a superior job of it, because he did. It's to say that at even at its very best this was a poor attempt. So I asked him why he really believes and you can see the result. At the end I linked to what he's doing, which can be found here.

Rauser is an epistemological solipsist just as I argued with regard to William Lane Craig, a second post of which can be read here. I had previously argued Rauser is impervious to reason. This is why. If anyone is living in a house of delusion they are. They are both impervious to reason. They are epistemological solipsists. I don't really care if they are, and I like them both, but so long as this is true I'll keep pointing it out to more reasonable people.

Too bad for Christianity if this represents its best defenders.

William Lane Craig, The Last Great Christian Apologist We'll Ever See!

The Trouble with Christmas

At this season let me leave you with some study material on Christmas.

For great reading on the history of Christmas see Thomas Flynn's book, Trouble with Christmas.
See also the Wikipedia Article on it. Check out Richard Carrier's essays on The Date of the Nativity, and The Problem of the Virgin Birth Prophecy at the Secular Web. Happy 25th!

Jonathan Pearce vs Randal Rauser Debate the Nativity Narratives

Jonathan Pearce debated Randal Rauser who co-wrote God or Godless?with me. They debated the historicity of the birth narratives found the gospels. The format was a 20 minute opening, 15 minute rebuttals, and so on. To the left is the amusing picture that Justin Schieber did at Reasonable Doubts, who hosted it. The link to the debate is right here! Jonathan writes at Skeptic Ink Network and wrote a good book on this topic: The Nativity: A Critical Examination.

The Kalam Argument and Counting Backward to Infinity

One of the philosophical arguments used to show the impossibility of an infinite past, per the Kalam Cosmological Argument, is that if an immortal being counted an infinite number of events we could never find her counting if we counted events backward in time. For no matter how many events we counted, the immortal being would already have finished her count to infinity. I've diagrammed it here. So let's suppose an immortal being has been counting events from the beginningless past. Then it's true that no matter how far backward in time we counted events from the present, she would already have finished counting an infinite number of events. However, there is nothing in the Kalam argument that forces us to think the immortal being stopped counting events. If she continued counting into the present then yes, we could find her still counting events. She could continue counting events into the infinite future too. So unless there is a reason to think otherwise this particular argument fails to show anything about whether the past is finite. It might be. It might not be. But this philosophical argument is irrelevant to establishing the case needed.

Top 10 Zombie Scenes in the Bible

Professor Gilmour of Providence University, Manitoba, Canada, has listed his favorite zombie imagery of the Bible. See his Top 10 Zombie Scenes in the Bible.

What Would Christianity Have Without Its Myths?

Christian "truth" is fabricated and propagated by Christian tradition and one of my favorites deals with my experience at Saint George Greek Orthodox Church here in Greenville, S.C.

While attending its annual spring Greek festival, I noticed the church was open so visitors could venture inside to get an introduction to the Greek Orthodox tradition and its icons, so I decided to check it out. As I entered, I was given a brief printed history which included the claim that the Greek Orthodox Church was the ONLY TRUE Christian Church established by Jesus Christ himself. (Wow, and I thought it was the Mormons!)

My Reviewers Reviewed, by Robert Ingersoll

This is the final part of a lecture delivered by Col. Ingersoll in San Francisco Cal., June 27, 1877. It was a reply to various clergymen of that city, who had made violent attacks upon him after the delivery of his lectures, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child," and "The Ghosts." [Thanks once again to Julian Haydon for this excerpt].

Three Biblical Spirits of Which One is Likely to Affect People This Holiday Season

A. The Holy Spirit (The promised “Comforter”, Acts 2: 4)

B. An Evil Spirit (Afflicted Saul, 1 Samuel 16: 14)

C. The Distilled Spirit (Lives in a bottle before possessing humans. Often cohabits with either of the above spirits! Proverbs 23: 31 -32)

May your Holiday Season be a spirit filled one! Harry

The World Will NOT END on December 21, 2012

The world will not end on December 21, 2012. I guarantee it. This is an easy prediction to make. Those who predict the world will not end on any particular day, month, or year have been right 100% of the time. Those who have predicted that the world will end on a particular day, month, or year have been wrong 100% of the time.  See Iowa State Daily Story.

What Kind of Christianity is This? A Review of Mark Roncace's Book

Professor Mark Roncace was raised in a conservative Christian church and attended a Christian school for thirteen years. He is now an Associate Professor of Religion at Wingate University in North Carolina who debunks the Bible in his popular level book, Raw Revelation: The Bible They Never Tell You About.His book is bittersweet for me, both a joy and a pain to read, brilliant and, well, ignorant. Yet, I recommend it highly just the same.

In a Godless Universe the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting is What We'd Expect Would Happen

Even though I'm a godless atheist I say this. Don't quote me though, at least not without my explanation. I'm not speaking about a godless ethic, that supposedly atheists do these kinds of deeds, and/or that they have no ethical standards to condemn such terrible senseless acts. I do have an ethic and I do condemn these kinds of deeds. That's a topic for another time so don't derail what I'm saying with irrelevant comments. What I'm saying here is something different.

The Use and Abuse of Scholarship by The Watchtower Society

         Of all the religious groups in America, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are probably the most zealous missionaries.  Chances are that one will knock on your door or approach you on the street to hand you a Watchtower or Awake magazine. Most of these missionaries are pleasant and well-groomed individuals, and they would like nothing better than to discuss their literature with you. What these Witnesses don't often know is how poorly researched their literature is.

The Late Semitic Scholar Anson Rainey’s Description of Most Jews Living in Israel and Scholarship

This email by Anson Rainey was his answer to my question over his conversion to Judaism. (One likely reason most Israelis would have let John Strugnell’s comments pass.) [Click on the email to enlarge for reading.]

Frank Moore Cross: A Secularist’s Assessment

It’s been two months since Professor Frank Moore Cross (1921-2012) died on October 17. Cross was Hancock Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages at Harvard from 1958-1992. In 1991, Hershel Shanks, the powerful editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, called him “one of the world’s leading Biblical scholars and probably the most influential.”

        

         Much has been said about his life and work, and I have left it to others to assess his enormous contributions to the study of ancient Hebrew poetry, the composition of the Deuteronomistic History, and many other areas of biblical studies.

         Here, I aim to place his work in perspective for those interested in the secular study of the Bible. In addition, I was the only openly agnostic/atheist doctoral student that he had as far as I know, and I completed my doctoral thesis under his supervision in 1991. Therefore, I may have a different perspective on the implications his work for secularism.

     Although Prof. Cross was no atheist activist, his work contributed much to undermining traditional Christian views of the Bible even if that was not always  his intention.

My Reviewers Reviewed, by Robert Ingersoll

This lecture was delivered by Col. Robert Ingersoll in San Francisco Cal., June 27, 1877. It was a reply to various clergymen of that city, who had made violent attacks upon him after the delivery of his lectures, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child," and "The Ghosts." Thanks once again to Julian Haydon for sending me this.

Science Denialism in Congress is Rampant and Appalling

We've been talking with David Marshall who denigrates and/or denies science in favor of his ancient holy book. So in order to highlight what we're talking about, Maria Maltseva, of Skeptic Ink Network (SIN), recently interviewed Dr. Donald Prothero who speaks to that issue. He tells us of some "scientific illiteracy and science denialism that are appalling enough by themselves, but even scarier is the thought that they come from the members of the House Science and Technology Committee!" Enjoy.

Quote of the Day, by David Marshall

Actually, John, I would say that almost all scientific evidence COMES TO US as historical evidence. Science is, in effect, almost a branch of history, as it transmits knowable and systematically collected and interpretted facts to our brains.

What then? Does the fact that you're not a scientist, and therefore have to trust what scientists say, entail that you don't have to trust science when it contradicts what you find in an ancient pre-scientific holy book based on the supposed historical evidence? Historians do not have at their disposal very much evidence to go on in many instances, especially the farther back in time they go. A miracle cannot be investigated scientifically since if it happened then the past is non-repeatable. Science however, progresses in the present with experiments that can be replicated in any lab anywhere on the planet. The only reason you want to bring science down to the level of the historian's very difficult but honorable craft is because you need to believe your faith-history is on an equal par with scientific results, only you place it above science because you say science is a branch of history, and not the other way around. You are therefore an ignorant science denier. You could become informed. You could visit a lab. You could notice the consensus of scientists on a vast number of areas. But no, you'd rather stay in your ignorance in order to believe in talking asses and that a sun stopped and moved backward up the stairs. Science or faith it is, and you choose faith. I choose science. The divide could never be more clearer.

Now There's A Queen James Bible! A Gay Bible for Gays ;-)

This was first spotted by Beth Ann Erickson at Skeptic Ink Network. According to the editors,

The Queen James Bible seeks to resolve interpretive ambiguity in the Bible as it pertains to homosexuality: We edited those eight verses in a way that makes homophobic interpretations impossible.

When I say there are all kinds of Christianities I mean it. *chortle chortle*