It was reported that on the Sunday following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, church attendance in the New York area was higher than usual. Perhaps people were searching for comfort, but my own fantasy was that these folks who showed up at church were there searching for a crucial answer—or to hold god accountable: why hadn’t their all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful deity done something to prevent the attacks? Was his attention captured by crises in other galaxies—or was diverting airplanes beyond his skill-set?
With regard to the killing of Charlie Kirk, bad ideas that are communicated respectfully still cause harm and must be opposed even though the person who espouses them is a respectful person, and even though he was unjustly murdered.
The Book of Acts, chapters 1 – 5: Our Jesus Cult is the RIGHT Cult
Among Bible-reading church-goers, I suspect that the gospels get more traffic than most of the books of the Old Testament. They also probably avoid the letters of the apostle Paul, which are not easy reading: sometimes his theology, his claims, can be confusing, even alarming, leaving devout folks puzzled. I wonder, however, if they venture into the book that follows the gospels, The Book of Acts—that is, the Acts of the Apostles.
From Jack Johnson on Facebook. He studied Biblical academics and counseling at Baptist Bible College, Baptist Bible School of Theology, Trinity Seminary. He says: "All three of these apologists think 2nd and 3rd hand accounts of the life and times of Jesus are "eyewitness" accounts and evidentiary in a court of law. So say their books: The Case For Christ (Strobel), Evidence that Demands a Verdict (McDowell), and Cold Case Christianity (Wallace)." [Click for more.]
Another mix of flimsy theology and cult propaganda
There are several different topics in this chapter, but the author’s agenda of cult promotion is transparent. Condemning divorce At the outset (verses 2-12), Mark’s holy hero Jesus makes pronouncements about divorce, positioning his decree as superior to that of Moses. Pay careful attention to two Jesus-scripts in this section: 1.“…from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wifeand the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (vv. 6-9) 2.“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her,and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” (vv. 11-12)
Matthew 7: A good start, then cult severity and bragging
It might be a good idea to compile a list of the Top Ten Bible Texts that Christians Ignore—and, no surprise, these can be found in the gospels, especially in the Jesus-script. The final section of the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 7, includes a classic example of ignored text: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye?You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” (Matthew 7:3-5)
I received a huge endorsement from Philosopher Jersey Flight on X. What a nice thing to hear! It happened on the same day I finished the first round of edits from my peer reviewed paper on atheist morality. This paper is a 24 page bad boy. James Sterba said that, given what one reviewer said it was clear he was "threatened" by it. 😉 Good!
Two Christian philosophers with Ph.D.'s are reviewing it, neither of whom seem to know how to respond with anything I have not considered before. Next is round two.
A few years ago I had the misfortune of attending a First Communion service at a suburban Rhode Island Catholic Church. The place was packed, parents and relatives eager to see the children going through this important ritual of the faith. I was not at all surprised to see that the clergy had mastered show business—performing the meticulous ceremonies in their impressive costumes. And the interior of the church was of unexpected grandeur for its suburban setting. Yet I found myself wondering two things: (1)What percentage of the hundreds of adults who showed up actually believed the idea that the priests were pushing? Namely, that through the miracle of the Mass, the kids were getting to eat Jesus for the first time. These adults live, work, and survive in the modern world. Do they really accept the superstitions/magical thinking that the Catholic hierarchy still pushes? (2)Why was anybody bothering to attend? Why isn’t membership in the Catholic Church down to zero by now? Why do people still show up, in the wake of the world-wide scandal of priests raping children; the most recent figure I have seen is that the church has paid more than three billion dollars in damages.
We three have been invited by Dr. James Sterba to write papers on ethics without God. So far Johnson's and Carrier's papers have both been published. Mine is to come shortwithly. There is a lot of similarity between Johnson's paper and mine! Carrier introduced his yesterday:
This consolidates my previous peer-reviewed work on metaethics (“Moral Facts Naturally Exist (and Science Could Find Them,” in The End of Christianity, ed. John Loftus, Prometheus 2011) and subsequent blogging and debates into a new peer-reviewed demonstration that moral facts are, in fact, logically necessary properties of rational agents and therefore always exist in all possible worlds (even in worlds without rational agents they exist as the inalienable properties of potential rational agents). God is therefore unnecessary to ground moral facts, and moral facts derive fundamentally from the conjunction of rationality and the situational facts of any potentially moral decision, and therefore are empirically discoverable as such.
A sorry mix of superstition, cult bragging, and bad theology
Baptist preacher William Miller predicted that Jesus would return on October 22, 1844. Thousands of people were psyched for this dramatic event, which turned into what became known as The Great Disappointment, since Jesus didn’t show up. Miller had calculated the date based on data—what he assumed was data—that he found in the Bible. He should have grasped that some Bible data is just plain wrong. Such as the opening verse of Mark 9: “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”
We are entitled to wonder what was going on in the head of the author of Mark’s gospel—whoever that was. There is consensus among mainstream New Testament scholars that this gospel was written in the wake of the destructive First Jewish-Roman War (67-70 CE), during which Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. This horror is reflected in Mark 13. The Jesus-script in Mark 9:1 might reflect this gap of four decades between supposed Jesus events and the writing of the gospel: “some standing here who will not taste death” until they see the arrival of the kingdom. Some maybe, likely very few.
This is a segment of my talk at last weekend's BAHA conference in Sarnia, Canada. The conference was fantastic, by the way, with excellent speakers who were experts in several different areas that contained some great content! What you'll see below is the written content of a few of my PowerPoint slides.
What could convince reasonable people to accept the miracle stories in the Bible? One thing for sure is that the story of doubting Thomas should not convince reasonable people. LINK.
What we need is convincing objective evidence!
1) Not Mere Testimony
Human testimony isn’t all that reliable. Cognitive biases filter all experience. We see what we expect to see. We see what we prefer to see. We have different agendas. As time passes, we don’t remember anything exactly as it happened.
Plus, sometimes people lie!
2) Worse Yet is 2nd 3rd or 4th Handed Down Testimony!
Nothing in the Bible that tells us of miracles was written by verifiable eyewitnesses. [Paul might be the lone exception but only if we ourselves can corrobate his stories.] At best then, we have 2nd 3rd 4th handed down testimony, as told by people with their own biases, agendas, faulty memories, and lies.
We would need to cross-examine them for the truth, but we can’t!
3) Especially Not Ancient Testimony!
A) Lessing’s Ugly Broad Ditch:
“Miracles, which I see with my own eyes, and which I have opportunity to verify for myself, are one thing; miracles, of which I know only from history that others say they have seen them and verified them, are another.”
Ugly Broad Ditch (cont.)
“The problem is that reports of miracles are not miracles…they have to work through a medium which takes away all their force.” [i.e., time!] But I live in the 18th century, in which miracles no longer happen.”
“This is the ugly broad ditch which I cannot get across, however often and however earnestly I have tried to make the leap.”
The Time Problem
Memories fail with time.
Evidence can be lost, damaged, or destroyed.
Witnesses have died.
Whole generations have died.
The world as a whole had changed. For example, in the minds of the “wise and learned” of the 18th century it was very common to think miracles ceased. [David Hume, Charles Darwin, David Frederick Strauss, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and other deists.]
By Contrast The Bible Asks Us To Believe Without Proof!
Doubting Thomas was admonished for not believing 2nd hand reports that Jesus arose from the dead.
Then Jesus “proves” he’s alive.
Then Thomas is told: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
By itself this story provides no evidence--certainly no objective evidence--because we were not there to corroborate it!
B) Especially Not Ancient Testimony!(cont.)
Dr. Richard Carrier has a Ph.D. in ancient history. This is what he concludes in “Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire”:
“The age of Jesus was not an age of critical reflection. It was an era filled with con-artists, gullible believers, martyrs without a cause, and reputed miracles of every variety.”
4) Worse Yet, Other Things Don’t Count:
Irrelevant archaeological evidence [i.e, Pool of Siloam]. Nor completed manuscripts three hundred years after the alleged events [Codex Sinaiticus 4th century], which were copied by scribes who added forgeries. Nor do inner voices, nor dreams, nor visions count.
“But you’re requiring scientific evidence that couldn’t possibly exist in the ancient world!”
This is your God’s problem, not ours!
If that’s the case, then that’s the case.
God could’ve waited until the 21st century to contact us, where it would be easy to provide the objective evidence needed for miracles. No knee-jerk reactions here. Just think about this and ask why not?
Just think of cell phones.
Keep in Mind the Point:
We’re not just being asked to accept a golfer’s claim to have consecutively sank 9 holes-in-one on a par 3 course.
We’re asked to believe a miracle, that something more than that took place, something unexplainably by science, like flying from tee to tee while acheiving such a perfect score!!
The only testimonies that can legitimately count for miracles are corroborated/verified testimonies, especially under cross-examination, which require objective evidence. This is what all reasonable people would require before accepting Mary's story that she was the mother of God's son!
We Need To Get the Real Scoop
Balaam, did you really hear a donkey talk out of his ass? “Nah,” he laughed. The story was a joke that began with three of us in a bar.
Moses, did God really give you Ten Commandments? “No” he admitted, “I borrowed them. God didn’t give them to me. What’cha going to do about it now?”
Peter, you say Jesus walked on water? “No, that’s fake news! “Jesus tried it but almost drowned. So he had the boys throw me in.”
Biblical scholar Dr. David Madison: “It is worth repeating this blunt reality: we have no way whatever of verifying any deed or saying of Jesus mentioned in the gospels. Their authors never disclose their exact, trustworthy sources, so that scholars could agree that something could be verified. The gospels were written decades after the supposed events described. How would eyewitness accounts or “reliable” oral tradition have been preserved, especially in the wake of the disastrous Jewish-Roman War that destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE?”
In my article here last week, I mentioned that the Sermon on the Mount is treasured by Christians as the pinnacle of wisdom—Jesus at his best. Yet, if we asked churchgoers where we can find this famous sermon, or how recently they’d read it—read it carefully, critically—what would their answers be? Surveys have shown that Bible reading is not a favorite hobby among those who profess to be Christian. And no wonder: there are texts, especially in the Sermon on the Mount, that would prompt many of the devout to say, at least to themselves: “This doesn’t make sense.” My article last week was about Matthew 5, so now we move on to Matthew 6 (this famous sermon is found in chapters 5-7).
Matthew 5: Highly prized, but deeply flawed, Jesus-script
Christian clergy and theologians—drawn to their profession by devotion to Jesus—are committed to the idea that the gospel accounts of their lord must be true. Hence they have no trouble claiming that the words of Jesus in the gospels were based on eye-witness accounts and/or reliable oral tradition. Yet there is no evidence—reliable, verifiable, objective evidence—to back up this claim.
Reducing your own bubble requires determination, effort, and courage
It’s inevitable actually: when we are born, we know nothing about the cosmos, and as we grow up, we get so many signals from adults around us about what to believe: about what is true. Religion especially relies on massive ignorance to maintain its position and status in the world. Christianity probably deserves a Gold Medal for its Bubble of Ignorance. Major features of the Christian Bubble Number 1: Devout Christians don’t know the origins of their faith.
Video 1: My livestream on Calvinism and the problem of evil.
I did a livestream reaction-video today on the problem of evil. There are some sound issues with this video, but my sound seems to have been mostly recorded, it is just quiet. The reason for its quietness is that there was a lot of background noise: cars passing, heavy rain, renovations—or, in the American dialect: remodelling—and so I had to have the gain on my cardioid Blue Yeti mic down really low, so as to exclude most of this background noise. The heat and the humidity, here in Ireland—as I am sure that my friend from North of the Border, Ignorant Amos, might confirm—is quite severe today, and so I had to have my windows open despite all of the background noise going on. However, I did not stand close enough to the microphone, and so the sound of my voice is really low. It was my first stream using OBS, and I think that it was ok for a first attempt.
Sound issues aside, one of the points that I keep returning to is that I consider Systematic Theology to be a System of Lies. In my view, “Systematic Theology” is merely an attempt by theologians to force the Biblical Text into its being univocal … when it is anything but.
I refer to Captain Cassidy McGillicudy, quite a lot, as I particularly like her style of counterapologetic. I don’t think that Captain Cassidy has much of a presence on YouTube which is why I particularly like to discuss her ideas on YouTube. I have binge-read most of what she has written over a period of more than a decade. Captain Cassidy, as I read her, is much more interested in persuading her readers that Christianity is harmful, rather than persuading her readers that Christianity is false. That Christianity is false, really should be a given, in this day and age. A religion invented to swindle mostly illiterate Mediterranean peasants, 2,000 years ago, really should not be swindling and fooling people today, in the age of the internet and Artificial Intelligence. As John Loftus puts it:
‘2,000 years is enough!’
. Pondering, though, the ways in which Christianity may be harmful, to my lights, is a much more interesting discussion, than pondering the myriad ways in which Christianity is false. Cassidy excels at this. To this end, allow me to recommend 24 Reasons to Abandon Christianity () by Charles Bufe. From what I remember from this book, and I read it but recently, Bufe mostly argues from Christianity’s being harmful rather than arguing from Christianity’s being false.
As John Loftus writes in a chapter in one of his anthologies—I just looked up my Kindle edition of God and Horrendous Suffering (), and it does not appear to be this one—the harm caused by Christianity is itself an argument from evil against the existence of an all-powerful, all-seeing and omnibenevolent god. Another humorous quip of Loftus’s is:
[Dr. Valerie Tarico posted this on 05/25/2007. Enjoy!]
Greetings! John has graciously asked me to join this community of thinkers and scholars, and I am honored to say yes. In a world torn by religous tribalism, what could be more important than re-examining the traditions that have inextricably blended wisdom and community with bigotry and violence.
I will begin, as others have, by posting my deconversion story. Out of a sheer overwhelming lack of time, I am cheating: copying out of my book,The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth, rather than beginning the narrative again from scratch.
Leaving Home.
When I first started having misgivings about my faith, I did what any good Evangelical would: I prayed. I was fifteen at the time, earnest and devout. An eldest daughter with a caretaker’s heart and responsibilities. A good student surrounded by a good family, good friends, and a good church community. Even so, the cognitive changes that beset teenagers—increased ability to introspect, to think critically, and to envision the possible—were giving me trouble.
This is a mediocre blend of magic folklore and cult promotion
It would seem that the author of Mark’s gospel was obsessed with Jesus’ magical powers to make food appear out of nowhere. In chapter 6 we saw that Mark’s holy hero fed five thousand people, somehow making five loaves of bread and two fish turn into enough food to satisfy them all. And now, at the opening of chapter 8, he produces enough food to feed four thousand. It would also seem that Mark had no trouble disclosing just how stupid the disciples were. Jesus proposes feeding this second huge crowd, “…they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat.If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way…” (vv. 2-3)
Are the devout in love with Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians?
When enthusiastic Christians decide they’d better read the Bible cover-to-cover—although it seems not to be a popular hobby—they must surely find themselves stumped: “Why am I doing this?” Maybe this first occurs when they come across the story of Lot in Genesis 19. Lot is a stranger in Sodom, and an angry mob is banging on his door—curious about other strangers he has welcomed to his dwelling—and he tries to calm them down by offering his two daughters for them to molest. At the end of the story, these daughters get Lot drunk on two successive nights and seduce him—and become pregnant. There is no hint here whatever that god was displeased or angry. Why is such a story included in the supposedly Holy Bible?
