National Geographic demonstrates what happens when you blindfold people using a ouija board.
This is what it means to think like a scientist, except that one shouldn't be afraid of stating the obvious conclusion at the end.
Labels: "Avalos"
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There is no one way to pray |
Labels: "Avalos"
Dear President Pearsall:
The time has come to fight back against the fundamentalists who are destroying the mind--not to mention the heart and soul--of American evangelical Christianity, including your university.
You have just assumed the presidency of Northwest Nazarene University (NNU) under a dark cloud. Your predecessor, David Alexander, resigned in disgrace amidst a scandal that seems to be growing, and you unexpectedly found yourself in an office that you did not seek, confronted with problems that you did not create. The greatest of these problems was your predecessor's termination of Tom Oord, a popular professor and your school's leading scholar.
In terminating Oord, Alexander caved in to pressure from Christian fundamentalists who wanted Oord's ideas--like evolution--removed from the classrooms of NNU. And this happened despite longstanding commitments to intellectual diversity and openness in colleges and universities. As you begin your presidency, you will find yourself surrounded by these same fundamentalists. Oord may leave but they will remain. And they will pressure you to remove other scholars who promote ideas they don't like. Please don't listen to them.
The Internet has more Christian apologists than a horse has hairs and many blogs by atheists or skeptics, but I have found only two blogs that focus on debunking Christianity or Christian apologetics. Yours and Cross-Examined. Do you know of any other blogs or websites that look at New Testament issues from a skeptical point of view?I'm assuming Miller is speaking of sites that focus exclusively on debunking Christian apologetics. I am happy Miller found this site, that's always good to know. However, I find his question both interesting and provocative. I ask my readers to comment on other blogs that seek to do this exact same thing. I'm sure there are others. But I'm not sure there are others more popular than the two blogs he mentioned. And between us, only one has multiple authors with advanced degrees writing for it.
Evidence without reason is lame, reason without evidence is blind.
Bethel is apparently circling the wagons and eliminating a hundred questions that create intellectual ambiguity of a sort that would sink their financial ship. I understand why they are doing so, but I also wish that the accrediting agencies would sink the accreditation ship for such schools. IMO they do not offer bona fide academic educations in key areas.I never thought I'd hear a Christian professor say that. Kudos!
Labels: College Accreditation
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Dr. Robert Myles |
Labels: "Avalos"
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Labels: "Faith"
"the Bethel Board of Trustees on June 9 of this year approved a new policy specifying that college faculty must affirm the same position on Adam and Eve as the Missionary Church, namely that Adam “was created by an immediate act of God and not by a process of evolution.” The new policy further specifies that Bethel faculty should advocate this as the “official, meritorious, and theologically responsible position of the College, without disparagement" LINK.This reminds me once again of John Schneider's comment on my post titled, "Honest Evangelical Scholarship is a Ruse. There is No Such Thing!" Schneider said, "I agree with John W. Loftus to that extent. There is no such thing. Like Islam, evangelical Christianity cannot survive intellectual honesty and freedom." LINK. This is taking place along with the debate evangelicals are presently having over homosexuality. Must be fun being an evangelical these days. Not!
I decided that in order to avoid prejudicing myself toward my doubts, something I always accused T of doing when she left the faith, I would find a well-recommended apologetics book and give God the first and best chance of answering my questions and calming my fears.
For the Pro side of the argument, I downloaded to my Kindle Norman Geisler’s [and Frank Turek's] I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
I already knew what book I would choose for the Con side of the conversation. I wanted to read the book that made me the most afraid, because that would be the greatest challenge. If I could get through that with my faith intact, I could set aside my doubts and at least approach the meditation question with the confidence that would come from overcoming what to me was the sternest challenge I could find. So I downloaded Loftus’ Why I Became an Atheist (Revised & Expanded).
I got a blank steno pad and started reading Geisler.
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"Doctor" Jim West |
Blair Mullins (On Facebook): Imagine if belief in the cause of dinosaur extinction worked the way religion does.
-Scientists who were born and raised in the south believe asteroids killed them off.
-Scientists born in the north believe it was a gigantic volcano eruption.
-Scientists born in Asia believe it was a plague.
-Scientists born in Europe believe it was an ice age that wiped them out.
We would all immediately recognize the absurdness of this… But for some reason change the topic from dinosaur extinction to religion and somehow people deem it reasonable… Go figure!
Like many of the unaffiliated in America, my problems with religion included biblical, social, personal, and scientific issues, the fine details of which are beyond this short article.
Professor Uri Yosef was born, raised, and educated in Israel, and completed his higher education (Ph.D. and M.B.A.) in the US. A researcher, scholar, and former tenured professor, Uri speaks at various Jewish venues about the efforts to counter Christian missionary groups. Uri's background in languages includes: Hebrew (native tongue), English, German, and Yiddish on a fluent level.Scroll down this page to the Suffering Servant link and see for yourselves:
The first book on Christian apologetics written by a leading atheist figure that teaches Christians the best and worst arguments for defending their faith against attack.To see a few blurbs (so far) and the Contents click here.
The Christian faith has been vigorously defended with a variety of philosophical, historical, and theological arguments, but many of the arguments that worked in an earlier age no longer resonate in today’s educated West. Where has apologetics gone wrong? What is the best response to the growing challenge presented by scientific discovery and naturalistic thought? Unlike every work on Christian apologetics that has come before, How to Defend the Christian Faith is the first one written by an atheist for Christians. As a former Christian defender who is now a leading atheist thinker, John Loftus answers these questions and more. He shows readers why Christian apologists have failed to reach the intelligent nonbeliever and offers practical advice for Christians, whether they want to better defend their faith against atheist arguments, or actively convert more individuals to Christianity.
I and my wife, Cindy Avalos, look forward to 2040 |
What would the documentary "a day without a christian" be like? Or "a day without religion". Certainly the bombings and violence in the middle east would come to a halt. But who would feed the world's poor, care for the sick, educate the children, and care for the orphans? People would like to say "the state", but the state does an overall aweful job at accomplishing these goals. The lionshare of the world's charitable contributions are made by christians. The Roman Catholic Church feeds more hungry, cares for more sick, educates more children, and cares for more orphans than any other institution on the planet. The secular world simply doesn't carry it's own weight. Where are the great infidel soup kitchens? Why aren't the debunkers caring for the sick in africa? Simply put, the violence may come to end but far more lives would be lost the moment the religious left the planet.The following is Dr. Avalos's most excellent and unique reply.
Labels: "Avalos"
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Prof. Paul Allen of Concordia University |
Labels: "Avalos"
As a New Testament scholar, I see my job as always listening first and foremost to the text in its historical context, and allowing its theology to be the first voice to which we respond. In the end, I will affirm creeds or confessions, if I do, because I believe they contain the right things to say at a given moment in time in which they were written, in light of what scriptures says. In this, I thought I was just being a normal biblical scholar. And Protestant. And Evangelical.This is typical of a conservative creedal requiring institution, which leads me to say once again that Honest Evangelical Scholarship is a Ruse. There is No Such Thing!
However, a couple of my senior Bible colleagues found this disturbing. It was not enough to affirm that some confessions were correct. One had to start with the confessions and use them as hermeneutical guides in the strong sense. One had to like the idea that we define Christianity by what we believe.
Integrity is crucial for both of us. I define integrity as being true to the historical critical scholarship and bringing that into theological dialogue with the church. They define integrity as being true to the “Grand Tradition of the Church” and allowing that to guide what we see in and say about history.
So when I say, “The Synoptic Gospels show Jesus as an idealized human figure,” I have not said enough. If I cannot say, “And it also shows the divine Jesus, as we learn in the creeds,” I have articulated a theology that “is on a trajectory” away from our shared statement of faith. My senior colleagues and I give different answers to the question, How do we relate the Bible to the theology of the church? And this is one major reason why next year will be my last at Fuller. LINK.
Oord was the university’s leading scholar, with 20 books on his CV; by most measures he was also the denomination’s leading scholar and one of a tiny number of Nazarene theologians whose reputations reached beyond evangelicalism. Oord had won multiple teaching awards and was wildly popular with students and respected by his colleagues. He had brought over a million dollars of grant money to the university—a remarkable accomplishment for a professor at a small, unsung liberal arts college. Oord, however, was controversial. He strongly supported evolution and had long been a target of creationists in the denomination. He embraced “open theism,” the view that God does not know the future but responds in love—rather than coercive control—to events as they occur, rather than foreordaining everything. Fundamentalist critics called him a heretic and had been vying for his termination for years.This is typical of a conservative creedal requiring institution, which leads me to say once again that Honest Evangelical Scholarship is a Ruse. There is No Such Thing!