What do you think? See below:
Here is an interesting NBC Dateline story about the dangers of faith based reasoning and the virtues of skepticism. Faith can be twisted by feeble human minds into believing what they want to believe against their own consciences. It's a tragic but important story. Think you are immune believer? Think twice if you have the faith these believers had.
Richard Dawkins provides a great example of how control beliefs control how believers see the evidence. They are indoctrinated (or brainwashed) to believe from birth and that's it. Watch him below:
Let's say you have this new book and you like it very much. How can you help promote it? Here are some suggestions:
Christian, on a scale of 1-100 how certain are you that Jesus bodily arose from the dead? Let's say that your own existence is a 100, that there is gravity stands at 99. On the other end let's say that the existence of the elves of Iceland merits a 1. How certain are you Jesus arose from the dead on such a scale?
Below is part one. The others can be found at YouTube:
An appalling ignorance of Hebrew is being used to perpetrate an absurd theory. This is one of the most sordid uses of Hebrew linguistics to support the claim that Barack Obama is the Antichrist. I would not spend much time on it, except that even some recognized "news" organizations are giving it coverage. In any case, this ridiculous argument comes from a YouTube video:
YouTubeVideo
Here is a response to a Bible thumper espousing a Pro Israel political view. He wrote:
I don't say God's existence is impossible, nor that miracles are impossible, nor that a good God must eliminate all pain, nor that methodological naturalism logically entails ontological (or metaphysical or philosophical) naturalism. Nor am I a hyper-skeptic simply because I'm a skeptic. Nope. Get the views of atheists right. It's just that we should be reasonable with the evidence, that's all. We're looking for what is most probable. Christian apologists participate in special pleading way too often. And they argue from a prior conclusion rather than to one. Point. Get. The.
I left the Christian fold mainly because I began to doubt the reliability of the Genesis creation accounts in the face of the age of the universe. Hector Avalos and Robert Price left it because of biblical criticism, both OT and NT respectively. Exapologist left it because of the failed prediction that Jesus was to return in his generation. Ken Pulliam left it because there was no cogent explanation of the atonement. William Dever left it because of biblical archaeology. Bart Ehrman left it because of the problem of suffering. My claim is that people leave the fold for so many different reasons because there are so many different reasons to do so. What other former Christian authors/scholars do you know and why did they leave the fold? Why did you?
This is pretty good stuff although he doesn't draw the correct conclusion that religions simply evolve. In any case, there is no creation ex nihilo here:
I've received more than one email from Christians who say that of all the issues I write about in my book the most troubling one concerns child sacrifice in the Bible (imagine that!?). Here's the excerpt below (from pp. 136-37). What d'ya think?
It's true that Islam and Christianity are growing exponentially around the world. Christianity is growing in the southern hemisphere and Asia, while Islam is growing in Europe. What alarms me is that in maybe in 50-100 years Europe will be dominated by Muslims while the southern parts of the world will be dominated by Christians. If so there could be wars. America is following in the footsteps of Europe by becoming more secular. If America steps in between them she will have to deal with the might of Europe aimed at the Christian tribes in the south. Then all hell will break loose with another World War. And in this war these countries will have more advanced weapons of warfare. It could happen. We have just a small window of opportunity.
Yep, that's right. There are preachers who don't believe. That's what Dennett's study explored in a recent study.
. Use this feature as an online index for the book itself. Just type a word, a name, or a phrase in the "search inside the book" box to find the pages where they are used in the text.
. While I do not like the title of the book, which is misleading for a few reasons, including the fact that Stone does not deal at all with my most recent book, The Christian Delusion (TCD), Stone's book is a respectfully written one. But anyone who reads Jason Long’s chapter in TCD will see quite plainly what Stone is doing. He’s doing his best to gerrymander around my arguments in typical political redistricting fashion in order to maintain his faith. It’s a wonderful case study in cognitive dissonance reduction. Let me explain by briefly commenting on his book, which he graciously sent me.
and 2) 
wrote:
. He responded to an email I sent him recently: