Newly Released, Bart Ehrman's Latest Book, "How Jesus Became God"
Bart Ehrman's book, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee, just arrived in the mail. I'll be reviewing it soon.
World Vision's American branch will no longer require its more than 1,100 employees to restrict their sexual activity to marriage between one man and one woman. Abstinence outside of marriage remains a rule. But a policy change announced Monday [March 24] will now permit gay Christians in legal same-sex marriages to be employed at one of America's largest Christian charities. LINK.
Clearly, those who live in richer countries see a weaker connection between religion and morality....While I see no necessary relationship between atheism and belief in social reform—the kind of reform that makes people more economically and socially secure, and provides government-sponsored healthcare—it’s obvious that if we want to eliminate religion’s hold on the world, we must also eliminate the conditions that breed religion...Providing universal healthcare and reducing income inequality are good places to start. LINK.
“First, what does it mean to win or lose an argument? There is an unspoken belief in some quarters that the point of an argument is to gain social status by utterly demolishing your opponent's position, thus proving yourself the better thinker. That can be fun sometimes, and if it's really all you want, go for it. But the most important reason to argue with someone is to change his mind. If you want a world without fundamentalist religion, you're never going to get there just by making cutting and incisive critiques of fundamentalism that all your friends agree sound really smart. You've got to deconvert some actual fundamentalists. In the absence of changing someone's mind, you can at least get them to see your point of view. Getting fundamentalists to understand the real reasons people find atheism attractive is a nice consolation prize.”
“If you believe morality is impossible without God, you have a strong disincentive to become an atheist. Even after you've realized which way the evidence points, you'll activate every possible defense mechanism for your religious beliefs. If all the defense mechanisms fail, you'll take God on utter faith or just believe in belief, rather than surrender to the unbearable position of an immoral universe.
Labels: belief, j. m. green, unbelief
In everyday life, we non-theists may find ourselves in discussions with theists. Have you noticed that these discussions often go around in circles and achieve nothing? Why is that? Let me suggest that one reason is because we are using their framework in which to discuss and argue. In this article, I will explore some practical ways to stay out of their framework. Who says they have the sole right to define the terms of engagement? For this discussion, we will focus on monotheism, but other areas might be just as interesting.
Many modern-day theists seem to consider the so-called monotheistic nature of their religions as a sign of legitimacy, at least when compared to other openly polytheistic religions. The gods of ancient Greece and Rome were many, each with their own unique powers and niches in the nether world. It is no problem to see these as polytheistic religions but interestingly it is almost as easy to identify so-called monotheistic religions as polytheistic. If we expose the propaganda of these religions by challenging this key concept, we shift the frame, and open the door for a different kind of discussion. We don’t have to acquiesce to their definitions of their invisible friends.
W. L. Craig |
Labels: "Avalos"
James Strauss with William Lane Craig at my 1985 graduation from TEDS |
I should say that one of the things that struck me, quite forcefully, in the aftermath of the publication of the book, was just how virulent, mean-spirited, and militant some atheists can be. The hate-mail and hate-response that I received for this book from the far left was absolutely as vehement as the hate-mail and hate-response that I have received for other books from the far right. It’s not easy being a historian, wanting simply to know what happened in the past, when so many have so many vested interests in having things their own way. Many of the mythicists are simply fundamentalists of a different stripe. Or so I’ve experienced! LINK.What I don't understand at all is this phenomenon. Why do atheists get so worked up about the question of the existence of Jesus? Isn't it merely a historical question to be settled in a reasonable dispassionate manner? Don't we have other arguments, plenty of them, showing that the Jesus in the gospels did not exist? I've written about this before in my post Did Jesus Exist? An All Out War is Going On. On this question I do not find Christian scholars attacking atheists but rather calmly trying to explain why they think Jesus existed. What's the problem here folks?
The Ark Before Noah, written by Irving Finkel, describes the author’s discovery and interpretation of what he calls the “Ark Tablet” – an early and relatively complete version of the Atrahasis story dating from 1900-1700 BCE that sheds new light on the biblical flood story and its Mesopotamian roots.
The Wrath of Yahweh Incarnate |
I am not interested in defending "the claims of Christianity." I am interested in defending mainstream secular historical study as a discipline from those who seek to manipulate it for ideological ends, whether those be Jesus-mythicists or Christian apologists. Ultimately historical questions need to be settled using the tools of historical study, and not on the basis that a particular conclusion seems particularly appealing in order to defend or attack someone's beliefs...anyone who claims to use history to try to argue for the resurrection, or Matthew's zombie apocalypse, needs to be called out on it. And mainstream scholars do that.In reference to the resurrection McGrath has said this before: "All sorts of fairly improbable scenarios are inevitably going to be more likely than an extremely improbable one. That doesn't necessarily mean miracles never happened then or don't happen now - it just means that historical tools are not the way to answer that question." When it comes to methodological naturalism McGrath wrote:
I don't see how historical study can adopt any other approach, any more than criminology can. It will always be theoretically possible that a crime victim died simply because God wanted him dead, but the appropriate response of detectives is to leave the case open. In the same way, it will always be possible that a virgin conceived, but it will never be more likely than that the stories claiming this developed, like comparable stories about other ancient figures, as a way of highlighting the individual's significance. And since historical study deals with probabilities and evidence, to claim that a miracle is "historically likely" misunderstands the method in question. READ THIS LINK.The only way to know if Jesus bodily arose from the dead is by using the tools of the historian. But those tools cannot possibly lead anyone to conclude Jesus arose from the dead. Faith cannot help us know what happened in history. Faith is irrelevant to the historian's task. Faith has no method. Period.
Labels: Irish Ancestry
Labels: Lowder, Lowder Ignorance, Mere Christianities
But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him. 1 John 2:27 (ESV)
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. John 14:26 (ESV)
Labels: j. m. green
Labels: "video"
Labels: "David Marshall"
Avalos will explore how scholars of Jesus divide themselves as historicists and mythicists. This lecture seeks to demonstrate that there is too little information from the time of Jesus to favor either side conclusively, and so agnosticism is the best position until more relevant new data can be acquired. LINK.
I said "At least important authors and prestigious publishers are taking notice, and that is a good thing." Let me add that I know the Jesus presented in the canonical gospels did not exist, and that's good enough for me.Then I was asked if I have moved toward the Christ myth position. I responded:
I know less and less about any historical Jesus. But I have no dog in this race so I don't see the need to argue passionately about it either way. To me it's a non-issue and I'll sit back and listen to those who want to argue about it.
One composite reconstruction of biblical cosmology |
Labels: "Avalos"