Christian Professor Dr. Randal Rauser to Review TCD

After reading 70% of it he writes:

The Christian Delusion...is an engaging read. The essays are generally of a high caliber and it provides a strong, comprehensive case against Christianity. I am grateful to Loftus and the other essayists for putting this volume together and very much looking forward to engaging it in the weeks to come. Link.

A quick look at Dr. Rauser's Curriculum Vitae shows he's not a Bible thumper to say the least. This should be interesting.

Can a Religion Pass The Outsider Test for Faith?

The Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) calls upon believers to test their own geographically inherited faith with the same level of skepticism they use to test the religious faiths they reject. The only kind of religion that might possibly pass this test is one that embraces some kind of nebulous god (although I don't think one exists). I think all of the so-called divinely revealed religions based in the ancient superstitious past fail this test. And yet, it didn't have to be this way had there been more evidence to believe. The evidence just doesn't exist for any of them. Christianity, for instance, could pass the OTF if God provided the needed evidence to believe. But he didn't do so.

Reasonable Doubts Podcast

Check it out.

My Chapter in TCD is the Inspiration for Someone at Debate.org

I hope The Instigator on this forum does well with it. He begins:

In this debate, I shall argue that the existence of vast amounts of animal suffering is a compelling reason to reject the existence of a theistic, omni-benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient God. This debate is targeted specifically at Christians, and Christian responses to the argument. For those who are interested, the inspiration for this debate comes from the chapter "The Darwinian Problem of Evil" in the recent atheistic anthology The Christian Delusion

The Problem With Using God as an Explanation

Actually there are many problems with using God as an explanation. Let me highlight what I consider one of the most important problems. It's this: it explains too much. It explains everything, and so it explains nothing. What do I mean by this? If every problem can be solved by a single solution then the solution has too much explanatory power. It becomes a simplistic solution.

Bart Ehrman vs Craig Evans on "Does the New Testament Misquote Jesus?"

Watch it below:

Debating Bart Ehrman is a Bad Idea?

So writes Jim Elliff on the Christian Communicators Worldwide blog. It is "wrongheaded" to set up debates with Bart Ehrman "or, for that matter, any unbelieving skeptic." Link. Why? Because debates like these will cause some believers to lose their faith. He's got that right. It does. ;-)

"Reading Books is Bad for Evangelical Christians"

Hey, I liked this post very much. I'm mentioned in it!

The Choice is Emphatically NOT Between Christianity and Atheism

I am an atheist. I reject all religious faiths and paranormal claims. In fact I reject faith, period. I should never take a leap of faith beyond what the evidence leads me to conclude. So I do not believe. I am a non-believer. That distinguishes me from people who believe. Believers are all in one category (or type, or classification) of knowers. Non-believers are in a different category of knowers. Believers base what they claim to know on faith. Non-believers base what they claim to know on the actual probabilities.

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

17) That although there is no rational explanation for why Jesus had to die on the cross to atone for our sins, his death atoned for our sins.

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

16) That while the results of science are assured when it comes to chemistry, physics, meteorology, mechanics, forensic science, medical science, rocket science, computer science, and so forth, when it comes to evolutionary science that shows all present life forms have common ancestors, or when science tells us that dead bodies do not arise from the grave because total cell necrosis is irreversible, the results of science are wrong because the Bible says otherwise.

Quote of the Day by Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society

If science disappeared from human memory, we would soon be living in caves again. If theology disappeared from human memory, no one would notice. Theology is a completely and utterly useless pursuit. It is self-indulgence of the first order. Link.
HT Russ

Interesting Recent Unrelated Posts

Listen to an interview with Bible scholar Dr. Jaco Gericke.

Then check out Dr. Keith Parsons on Robin Collins's fine tuning argument.

And don't miss Dr. Ken Pulliam's posts related to slavery in the South. With regard to slavery the pro-slavery arguments were stronger than the abolitionists. See for yourself what the pro-slavery contingent said.

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

15) That while there is no rational explanation for how a person can be 100% man and 100% God, and although ancient pagan superstitious people believed this can take place (Acts 14:11-12; 28:6), Jesus was incarnate God in the flesh.

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

14) That although there were many false virgin birth claims about famous people (like Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Plato) mythical heroes (like Mithra, Hercules) and savior gods (like Krishna, Osiris, Dionysus) in the ancient world, Jesus was really born of a virgin.

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

13) That Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy even though there is not one passage in the Old Testament that is specifically fulfilled in his life, death, and resurrection that can legitimately be understood as a prophecy and singularly points to Jesus as the Messiah using today's historical-grammatical hermeneutical method.

Was Mark's Gospel a Work of Fiction?

As I've argued before, history is a slender reed to hang a religious faith on. The evidence for an event happening in the past is always going to be less than what we personally experience--always! We know all to well about forgeries, faked evidence, and fraudulent claims to take anything at face value, especially when it comes to the past, and exponentially when it comes to some miraculous story in the ancient superstitious world.

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

12) That although people around the world are raised in different cultures to believe in their particular god(s) there is only one God and he will judge all people based upon whether or not they believe Jesus is Lord.

Secular Nation Podcast Featuring David Eller on "You Atheists Just Aren't Natural"

For today’s Podcast Dr. David Eller will read his article, “You Atheists Just Aren’t Natural”. Dr. Eller holds a PhD in anthropology and teaches in Denver Colorado. Dr. Eller has been featured in several freethought magazines including Secular Nation and is also featured in John Loftus’s newly published book “The Christian Delusion.” Listen here.

Some New and Interesting Books

A last six of these books I already have. The others look really interesting to me and are on my wish list.

An Open Challenge to William Lane Craig

[Written by John Loftus] Dr. Craig answers one question a week here. I had asked him a question about Lessing's ugly broad ditch, which he answered nearly three years ago here. Immediately afterward I asked him a follow-up question. So far there has been no response. Maybe he'll get to it? At least I hope so. I issue a public challenge for him to answer it:

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

11) That God created human beings with rational minds that require evidence before they accept something, and yet this same God does not provide enough evidence but asks them to have faith instead.

Christianity Disproved

I like this site Christianity Disproved. There's lots to see and to digest. The problem is that Christianity has been disproved in every generation, especially since the Enlightenment. Christian apologists simply reinvent their faith in every generation to save it from refutation. What we have in subsequent generations is a slightly different form of the inherited branches of Christianity. As generation piles upon generation what we have are different forms of Christianity such that the Christianities of today would have suffered under the Office of the Inquisition they are so far removed. And the Christianities of the future will be just as different as today's forms.

CNN Launches Belief Blog, Controversy Ensues

Welcome to CNN’s Belief Blog, where we'll cover the role that faith and belief play in the news - and in our readers’ lives.

We believe that understanding the role of faith in today’s world isn’t optional or nice to know. It’s need to know.

Because of the outcry from atheists like PZ Meyers and others, this Blog may also give voice to atheist and nonbeliever issues.

"Religions that preach retribution for non-belief cannot in fact lay claim to being reasonable"

When I threaten you, I automatically remove reason as an allowable means to accepting my claim. I’ve in effect determined your choice. If you were truly free to exercise reason, I would have to accept its outcome no matter what, even if I considered you gravely mistaken. Punishment for arriving at a wrong conclusion turns reason into a thought-crime.

So when believers like Christians or Muslims contend their faiths are based on reason, one may simply object that this can’t be so because their god in fact doesn’t allow it. Using reason to arrive at any other belief than the correct one will earn you an eternity in hell. Thus, reason is in reality an evil to be avoided....Blind, unquestioning, and unexamined belief is what the theist’s retributive god truly desires, not a belief grounded in reason. Link

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

10) That an omniscient God could not foresee that his revealed will in the Bible would lead believers to commit such atrocities against others that reasonable people would conclude there is no divine mind behind the Bible. I call this The Problem of Miscommunication.

Theories of Punishment and the Substitutionary Atonement

Ken Pulliam broaches this subject by asking,

Why do we punish wrongdoers? What is the purpose of the punishment? It is crucial to understand the theories of punishment in order to properly understand the rationale behind the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the atonement. Link

Christians Impaled on the Horns of a Moral Dilemna

Take for instance chapter eight in The Christian Delusion written by Hector Avalos. He argues that Yahweh is a moral monster, contrary to Paul Copan.

Here then is the dilemma: The Christian thinks there is an objective absolute morality that stems from their perfectly good God, which is both eternal and unchangeable. But the morality we find in the Bible is something quite different than what they claim. Morality has evolved. What we find in the Bible is not something we would expect from a perfectly good God. So Christians must choose, either 1) hold to a philosopher's god divorced from the historical realities of the Bible, or 2) continue to worship a moral monster.

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

9) That although a great number of miracles were claimed to have happened in the different superstitious cultures of the ancient world, only the ones in the Bible actually happened as claimed.

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

8) That when it comes to verifiable matters of historical fact (like the Exodus, the extent of the reign of David, Luke's reported world-wide census, etc) the Biblical stories are disconfirmed by evidence to the contrary as fairy tales, but when it comes to supernatural claims of miracles that cannot be verified like a virgin birth and resurrection from the grave, the Bible reports true historical facts.

Christian, Become a Preacher, I Dare You

Could it be The Worst Job in the World?

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

7) That although we see completely different perspectives and evolving theologies in the Bible, including many things that are barbaric and superstitious to the core, it was authored by one divine mind.

Answering Two Objections That Jesus Was a Failed Apocalyptic Prophet

Two objections to my chapter 12 in The Christian Delusion have surfaced. You can read a summary of it right here, but keep in mind that dealing with a summary of a chapter is not dealing with the case I present in that chapter. Let me answer these two objections.

How NOT to Argue Against Me: A Critique of Shandon L. Guthrie's Critique

You can find several summaries of my new book The Christian Delusion out there. But if you think dealing with a summary of a book is the same thing as dealing with the arguments in it, then think again. One professor did this with my previous book Why I Became an Atheist, and this is how I responded:

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

6) That although there are many other similar mythological stories told in Ancient Near Eastern Literature that pre-date what we read in the Bible, the stories in the Bible are about real events and real people.