[Written by John W. Loftus] Jerald Dirks is a former minister (deacon) of the United Methodist Church. He holds a Master's degree in Divinity from Harvard University and a Doctorate in Psychology from the University of Denver. Here he is interviewed on The Deen Show sharing why he accepted Islam. I was only going to skim through his interview, but I found myself captivated by his story. His critique of Christianity is penetrating and well founded.
I was thinking of doing my own post on this topic. I have heard Christians say Pat Robertson is a moron for suggesting the Haitian disaster was a divine judgment for too long now. No, they are the morons. Pat Robertson represents Christian tradition, not them, as Dawkins said in a Washington Post column:
If you're interested in debates like I am, below you can watch an interesting one by two atheists. Yep, that's right, two atheists. Oh, I know that Mary Jo Sharp is a Christian apologist and that Ehteshaam Gulam is a Muslim apologist. But if you listen closely they are using atheist arguments against each other.
If God sent Jesus to save the world by dying on the cross for our sins (the greater deed) then he should at least be as passionate as Christians are to help people believe (the lesser deeds). Why would God do the greater deed and not also do the lesser deeds? This doesn't make sense of an omniscient, omnibenelovent, and omnipotent God. The excuses given for the paucity of evidence reveal that the Christian expects way too little from the God they believe in. [First posted 10/29/08]
Friel plays a game of “What if?” with Hitchens. Below is a condensed paraphrase from Luke at Common Sense Atheism:
This movie will be released tomorrow. From the trailer I saw on their
website it looks very very good! I can't wait to see it myself. Check it out if you can.
It was the Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers student group at the University of Illinois that was approached to suggest someone to debate Dinesh D'Souza. I didn't know until now why they suggested me. In December one of them said he has been disappointed with the atheists who have debated recently:
Here's science with an answer:
I remember years ago having writer’s block on several occasions when I had to write my weekly Monday column for our church paper, or when preparing a sermon, or a series of sermons. Now I write something almost once a day here at DC. I have so much to say, although, after four years on this Blog I tend to repeat myself. Still, since I gain new readers every week, some things must be said repeatedly.
Joe Holman, a former preacher and team member here at DC, recently wrote some sarcasm which I think is pretty damn funny. Check it out:
Click on the play button below to see Part 1, which will introduce you to the participants. Then you can watch the debate on evil we had at the Old Dominion University, in Norfolk, VA, on October 7th 2006.
When it comes to the problem of evil, in my book I mention the possibility of perpetual miracles from God that alleviate suffering among God's creatures. I call it the
Perpetual Miracle Objection. David Hume didn't use this exact phrase when he objected that the ordering of the world by general natural laws "seems nowise necessary" for God, but it's the same concept.
Newsweek columnist Lisa Miller discusses this topic below:
As a bit of sarcasm that Voltaire would appreciate let's all praise God for the disaster in Haiti. God is sovereign. He knows what he's doing. In fact this has been long overdue.
I have several good people who comment here at DC. Take Russ for instance, who makes several interesting points in debate with Rob R.
[N]o two people calling themselves Christians view Christianity the same way. Being Catholic he's likely not even reading the same Bible you read. In fact, he may not read it at all. Many Catholics chuck the entire OT, except of course for hating homosexuals and original sin. Without a doubt, given your doctrinal differences each of you is heaven-bound by your own lights, and each of you has reserved a ticket for the other on the bus to hell. You do not accept each other's dogma, so his choice for apologetics will be different than yours. Get it through your thick skull: you do not represent all things Christian and to suggest that you do is intellectually dishonest. You do not even speak for a large fraction of Christians.
I'm becoming encouraged as Christians, one after another, are showing me they are really interested in the truth. How can they be if they never actually read the opposing literature? I have read and taught the other side and I claim the other side had better arguments. And I'm challenging Christians to do the same. If they come away thinking otherwise, then so be it. At least this shows they are interested in the truth.
This video should grab and hold your attention as it tries to explain the rise of religion and why science removes the fear that produced it in the first place. It's good!
Jeremy, who is apparently taking over the Biblioblogger rankings list, had asked recently how to decide who should make the list of BiblioBlogs. Since he asked, I responded
in the comments section as follows:
Glenn Peoples rejects an eternal hell in favor of extinction or annihilationism, which I
wrote about previously. Glenn takes issue with what I had said. Here we go again...
So far three Christians have decided to do this in 2010 that I know of. Luke at
Common Sense Atheism talks about the goals of one such person named Phil, and offers his own list of books. In the comments a preacher named Greg from the "Cambridge Church of Christ" will do so as well. A person named Micah is doing this and may end up writing a book about it, along the lines of the very popular “My Year Of…” genre of books, for which I might write the Foreword. The choice of books is important but not as important as the challenge itself. Come on, what do you have to lose?
This is pretty cool! I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my readers, so thank you all!
For what it's worth the results from Post Rank Analytics
can be found here. The top ten posts for the year
can be found here.
What a crackpot, a buffoon. He claims it's easy to raise the dead. He's an idiot.
Atheists are typically described as being angry people. I don't know whether any scientific polls have been done on this but it stands to reason some of us are. While some level of anger isn't healthy, I'm angry to some degree. It's part of what motivates me and many other skeptics. Passion. It's a great motivator if kept in check. But I'm not angry at a God who does not exist just as Christians are not mad at Allah. Nor am I angry with believers as a whole. I know many good Christian people.
I'll just link to what Bruce over at
Restless Wanderings said.
Charles Darwin laid out what I call
The Darwinian Problem of Evil. In his autobiography he wrote:
It appears that an amateur Catholic apologist has decided to take my
Debunking Christianity Challenge. This is how it's done right! Any other takers? I said:
I have a challenge for Christians. It’s a challenge few will take up, but let me offer it anyway, even though many expert Christian apologists have done it without a loss of faith. Other Christian thinkers struggle with their faith because they have done what I'm about to ask Christians to do. Still others....end up rejecting our former faith. Do this. I’ll call this the Debunking Christianity challenge....read up on all of the top Christian apologetics books and then [decide] in fairness to read all of the top skeptical books....Come on…what are you afraid of? If your faith can withstand our arguments then you will be a better informed Christian with a much stronger faith. If your faith cannot withstand our arguments then your faith wasn’t worth having in the first place. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE! Link.
This is what he plans to do. A report of his findings would make it's own publishable book.
One belief change of mine that allowed me to pursue my doubts about Christianity was the rejection of an eternal punishment in hell. This doctrine is completely barbaric. It is the biggest stick ever invented by man to keep believers from questioning their faith. Christian philosopher Dr. Glenn Peoples rejects this doctrine too in favor of annihilation, and says why in a recent post. Reject it like he does and you'll be freer to think about your faith.
[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.
