[Posted by John Loftus] Someone sent me a link to this. See what you think. It looks pretty good.
I’ll begin by introducing the history of the theory, provide my perspective on JEPD, and then proceed to outline its strengths and weaknesses.
I've been critical of
Psalm 14 and
Psalm 137 recently. One criticism of me is that I'm ignoring that these Psalms are not prose but poetry. I know the difference, but one thing that cannot be said is that poetry does not contain truth claims. Here's an example said by me recently to Brad Haggard:
And guess which Blog is now ranked 2nd, topping all but one of them? *
Cough*. Thanks to all my readers. It means a great deal to know people are interested in what some guy in Indiana has to say.
Previously I had argued that Psalm 14:1 claims an atheist is an immoral person, not an insane one, as Jim West had ignorantly argued. And I reject both accusations. And I argued the correct immoral interpretation of Psalm 14:1 is easily proven false by one lone ethical atheist. This verse is speaking about our behavior not our beliefs, for it's speaking about the behavioral consequences of our not believing. Again, the verse reads: "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good."
Here is the text of the Psalm in full:
Recently Craig refused to debate me again. But not just me this time. He also refused to debate Robert Price, Hector Avalos, and Richard Carrier, three other contributors to the anthology to be released in April called
The Christian Delusion. Maybe he ought to refuse to debate everyone who contributed to that book, right? Here's the story:
Psalm 14:1 says: "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good."
My claim is that once we correctly understand this verse we can easily refute it.
Christian, God fearer, Bible believer, how long before this ends?
To see a trailer of this documentary
click here. A synopsis of it
can be found here. I've already argued that the rapture madness
is indeed madness. This is yet another reason why I do what I do here at DC.
The following is a response to recent reports of an inscription found at Khirbet Qeiyafa, by Dr. Hector Avalos, Iowa State University:
Watch "The Invisible God" by
The Thinking Atheist.
Check it out. This is excellent and non-refutable.
That's right, or so he claims. What is missing from his credal statement? What is different from the historic creeds of the faith? Convert I say.
If you haven't already watched this it's worth looking at to understand what he thinks:
A recent post, titled
Based on This Argument Alone The Best Any Believer Can Claim is Agnosticism, has gained a lot of attention and been sidetracked by Christians who seek to defend their beliefs rather than think through it. To these Christians let me show you a much better way to argue your case, coming from a gay guy named Gaylord Martha Focker on
Facebook, whose beliefs I can't say for sure, even if his his response is dead wrong:
The provocatively titled blog by Leah Elliott Hauge called
The Whore of All the Earth first linked to this brief but incredible TED talk. Fisher tells us of the science of lust, romantic love, and attachment, and it blows away the ancient Biblical understandings in several ways. View it and then let's count the number of ways this science destroys Biblical understandings, shall we? Once again it's Science vs Religion and once again believers will denigrate science. Go figure. How many times must they do this to believe?
On Facebook I became a fan of the group "I may be going to hell but at least all my friends will be there." It's just a fun group and I can do fun. But then a Christian friend of mine and I got into a brief conversation about it:
I really liked how Sam Harris answered Karen Armstrong's
Foreign Policy article
right here, although she got the last word. What's wrong with the liberals? Why don't they get it? Sam's sarcastic answer is a much better response than trying to reason with people like her, so it's better than
my review of her book,
The Case For God. But they just don't get it.
Jen McCreight has complied a large list of awesome female atheists. Kudos to them and many thanks for all their efforts in our fight against superstition, pseudoscience, and ignorance. We need them! Let me rather say it this way: I'm glad to join with them in this common cause. So far her list includes:
PZ Myers has topped every atheist poll so far and isn't doing too bad as a write-in on the
most influential female atheist of 2009. ;-) He creamed all challengers on my own
most vocal atheist poll, and right now he's beating out
everyone in the universe combined. Since he wins all polls here's one in the sidebar where
he cannot win in every category! We've got him this time. So which will it be?
I support this wholeheartedly:
Check out this video of "Noah's Ark and the Great Flood":
Hear Christopher Hitchens interviewed by Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell. He's defending
the fundamentalist critique of liberalism. You see, I agree with the fundamentalist critique of liberalism, as well as the liberal critique of fundamentalism. I agree with the Catholic critique of Protestantism as well as the Protestant critique of Catholicism. They debunk themselves leaving us no reason to accept Christianity in any form. HT: Hemant Mehta.
And lookee here. I bested all but two of them. Now that Jim West is off the market I only need to overtake J.L. Watts for the number one slot. Can it be done? I wonder how I could convince him that he is
boring too. ;-)
Here is an interesting scenario I have wondered myself, so I'd appreciate any input on it since I'm not a scientist:
A GPI comparison of theistic nations to atheist nations shows us that peace
is non-theistic.
Watch the following interview and then read what I consider a refutation of
Reformed Epistemology by Dr. Jaco Gericke afterward. Who wins?
[Written by John W. Loftus] What I’m engaging in here at Debunking Christianity is a huge challenge. I like big challenges. So let me offer one to Christians...
In light of the developments of the last week or more let me recap what has happened. See what you think. I’ll try to keep this brief as possible and I’ll number my points for easy reference, not that I have to, okay?
That's right. For even if some kind of god exists the believer has no reasonable way to know anything about such a god, hence a theistic kind of agnosticism. dguller expressed this cogent argument very well in the comments:
That's right. Not as pictured on the left but a bigger version of the one on the right:
See the story here. Now pseudo-apologists will start finding the remains of a big bowl boat in the mountains of Turkey, right? Right!
It looks like Luke over at
Common Sense Atheism does one a month.
Check them out.
When I first read the selection below I was a believer and thought what Swinburne wrote on this topic in his book,
The Existence of God (1979 ed.), was excellent. No longer do I think so.
I had linked earlier to a site about
Reasoning Fallacies. I think it's time to illustrate them with some real examples of how most Christians argue at DC in a series of short Blog posts. I'll illustrate several of the most blatant fallacies as I see them using that link's nomenclature. Don't get caught or I might write you up for it. ;-) This could be the beginnings of a book, we'll see!
Ricky Gervais describes why he became an atheist.
Link. Gervais directed and starred in the comedy
The Invention of Lying.
Yep, that's true of most of them in my opinion. Here's exhibit "A" named Brad Haggard, and my response. Watch how easy this is because I am not in that box of theirs.
This is a challenge emailed to me from Johnny Pearce. It's interesting:
In May of 2008 I had called upon skeptics to create an organization for
doing humanitarian works. It now looks as if that is going to happen with the
Foundation Beyond Belief. I first heard about it from former DC team member Valerie Tarico
on Exchristian.net. Here is a video about it below:
They're both still missing! ;-) Maybe if and when Jim West comes back he'll deal with what
Dr. Hector Avalos and others wrote here. Sorry, but anyone who claims like Jim West did that "Atheism is insanity. Hence, there’s no more point in arguing with (or even discussing things with) an atheist than there is in walking into an insane asylum and attempting to carry on a lucid conversation with persons utterly devoid of the gift of lucidity," doesn't deserve my respect. For I am one of those people and I take those attacks personally.
I like this one. Women don't always get their fair share of respect.
Go Vote.
Yep, that's what I think, and I don't think he understands what it is enough to offer an effective critique, so this will probably be my last reply to him. We'll see...
That is if you're a young earth creationist. ;-) Hat Tip to
Stephen Law for this.
