This is an episode from a BBC program hosted by neurologist V.S. Ramachandran that explains his key findings in certain instances of brain damage that have long been viewed as mere curiosities by the scientific community.
Christian, do you agree that objective evidence is external to the knower and can be verified by a third party at least in principle? Yes or no? How then can any third party verify a claim such as someone else's inner witness of the Spirit? At least someone's claim to be abducted by aliens is able to be verified in principle by a third party. Anyone in any religion or sect within one can claim to have had a veridical religious experience. These claims are a dime a dozen when they cannot be verified even in principle by a third party. That makes all of these claims subject to the charge of delusion, and as such, no evidence at all EVEN TO SOMEONE WHO CLAIMS TO HAVE HAD ONE! Q.E.D.
There are lots of books not listed in my sidebar. So let me explain my choices since some authors might feel slighted for not seeing their book listed.
Hint: It probably means nothing at all.
There are other considerations.
I have not read everything. There are a lot of books I have not heard about yet. There are more being published every week, especially ebooks. And keep in mind I don't have the space in the sidebar to list all of the books I know. Furthermore, I have tested some books but they don't sell well here. Books that don't sell I don't keep on the list. Books that sell well factor in my choices. There are even a few books I place in the sidebar because they are important to be aware of, although I might not agree with some important aspects in them.
I hope this helps. If your book isn't listed it probably means nothing at all. Cheers.
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If you'd like to recommend a book or two or more, do so below and tell us why you recommend it.
William Lane Craig claims the inner witness of the Spirit "trumps all other evidence." It is "an intrinsic defeater-defeater" for anyone who experiences to it. So even if I don't have that witness, and even if I don't like the idea of such a witness, I'm in no position to judge that he does not possess it. Craig claims this inner witness provides all the evidence he needs to know Jesus personally and that Jesus is his savior. This witness is sufficient for him. It defeats any evidence to the contrary as utterly irrelevant. But this is delusional on a grand scale. How do you convince a delusional person like this? I probably can't. That's the power of a delusion like this. So for people not impervious to reason let me speak to them. What Craig is doing is sophistry plain and simple. He's describing a subjective experience and claiming it's an objective veridical experience that defeats all other objective evidence. Now it's one thing to say a subjective experience is to be considered objective evidence, as delusional as that is. It's another thing entirely to say a subjective experience carries more weight than all objective evidence. People wonder why I call Christians delusional. You need not wonder any more.
You have probably never heard of Julian but he is one of the unsung heroes among skeptics. Here we see him writing his nephew on Adam's supposed free choice in the garden.
I cannot conceive of an omniscient God being able to do this given all that I know about Christianity, the Bible, theology, philosophy, science, and the history of the church. For God to do this he would have to re-create this universe and basically rewrite history itself. But what is done is done. If however, it takes omniscience (or near omniscience) to show the Christian faith is true, then God should also know that without it I could not think otherwise. I might be wrong. But not even an omniscient God can show me that I willfully reject Christianity against the overwhelming evidence given that I am not omniscient and given what I find in this world. What the evidence leads me to think is that the Christian faith is wildly improbable.
Just once--once mind you--I'd like to see just one believer, only one, who will say, "Hey, I'm like most people. What I believe is based on my cultural prejudices just like most everyone else." I have never heard one believer admit this, not one, even though in a scientific poll Michael Shermer found that 9 out of 10 people say that other people adopt their religious faith because of cultural influences and emotional reasons. Every single one of them claims to be the exception to the rule, to a person.
John Green is a missionary pastor's son from a Pentecostal background who has written some things for Discipleship Journal and Wittenburg Door. Below is his brief story and an article he wrote on hell.
Richard C. Miller's "Mark's Empty Tomb and Other Translation Fables in Classical Antiquity," Journal of Biblical Literature, v. 129, no. 4 (2010) is a good read. According to Miller the story of an empty tomb as found in the earliest Gospel owes more to similar Hellenistic stories than Christian scholars have been wont to admit.
This clip from "The Wrath of Khan" expresses my thoughts as I ponder the impact of my revised book, Why I Became an Atheist, which I am now officially done editing.
In 1971 a NASA space orbiter named Mariner 9 discovered that the canals on Mars were illusory. This discovery strongly disconfirmed the claim that there was intelligent life on that planet. Before this discovery many people claimed they encountered Martians. Afterward, Martians stopped visiting us and aliens started visiting us from Venus. Then after the surface of Venus was found to be hot enough to melt lead Venusians stopped visiting us too. Now they come from far more distant places in our universe. What best explains this? It’s because there were never any Martians or Venusians who visited earth.
Why is it Christians cannot agree to the point where they have condemned each other to hell and/or slaughtered each other because of doctrinal differences that other Christians don't think are essential for salvation? My answer is that Christianity is man made, and as such, doctrinal differences are due to different human ways of understanding the Bible. There is no divine mind behind the Bible, otherwise God should have communicated his will much better than he supposedly did. That's the major reason why there is no doctrinal Christian unity. These different doctrinal understandings continue to be used by denominational leaders to differentiate between Christianities for financial gain and power. Christian, what's your answer?
I have had the privilege of reading through Victor J. Stenger's soon to be released book,
God and the Folly of Faith,
and it's a
tour de force. Among the published atheists trying to bridge the gap between scientifically minded people and people of faith, I think Stenger is the best.
[Written by John W. Loftus] This topic interests me to no end. Why don't most believers seriously question their faith? Does it take a special type of individual? Does it require some personality trait that believers don't have? Does that make skeptics different people? Could it be intelligence? Could it be that skeptics have a higher self-esteem than others? Is it that we don't need social approval? Is it that life's experiences have shown us we cannot accept the dominant opinion on a matter? Is it that we question what we're told in general? Perhaps, but when we look at skeptics in general there doesn't seem to be a set pattern. Perhaps a scientific poll might help answer that kind of question. What I do think is that the following ten reasons are almost certainly necessary conditions even if they are not sufficient ones:
I want to briefly make the case that there is no atheist community. There are only atheist communities. There is likewise no atheist movement. There is only an atheist momentum. Atheists do not even share the same goals. Again, briefly, because my time is limited, here goes.
I've decided to return to blogging here. I like it better. Stay tuned.
Dr. Avalos's guest editorial was published in the politically influential Des Moines Register, and centers on how the nomination of Newt Gingrich would signal the erosion of self-described Christian conservatism.
Follow this Link.
which I highly recommend. Here's a brief summary of it:
It has 536 pages, a 110 more than the previous edition. It's such a massive revision my publisher is treating it as a new book.
I heartily endorse it as do many others: