This project has been a couple of years in the making, but it is one that myself and my co-editor are very proud of. Beyond an Absence of Faith: Stories About the Loss of Faith and the Discovery of Self is a collection of deconversion accounts from people of various worldviews from people from a number of countries.
A god worthy of worship is a god that someone thinks is worthy of worship. As the world got bigger people needed a bigger god to worship. That's about it.
That which creates and sustains all religions is a sense of mystery, fear, guilt and suffering. People want answers so religions have been created to help solve them. The scientific fact of evolution is the best explanation for why we experience these feelings as rational animals, thinking reeds. Hence, there is no longer any need for any religion.
Let's consider the kinds of evidence Christians argue should convince us to believe. Philosophical arguments to their God are special pleading since they don't lead to any specific religious sect. What's left? There's no empirical evidence since we weren't there to witness the resurrection for ourselves. It's not good enough for reasonable people to simply accept someone's claim that he saw some guy come back from the dead, much less someone in the ancient superstitious pre-scientific past. The textual evidence comes from the 4th century, which contains known forgeries. In these texts there is no first-hand eyewitness testimony. Neither Jesus nor his disciples nor anyone who saw or heard Jesus wrote any of them. There is no prophetic evidence, none. There is no prophecy of a Trinitarian God, no prophecy of an Incarnation, no prophecy of a virgin birth, no prophecy of a dying Messiah and no prophecy of a resurrected Messiah. All the so-called Old Testament prophecies are either not predictions at all, or misapplied by the New Testament writers. There is no corroborating evidence of the bizarre unbelievable stories in the Gospels about earthquakes, eclipses, or dead saints who were supposedly raised from dead when Jesus did.
And I'm supposed to believe? Really? Seriously? When I say there isn't sufficient evidence to believe I mean just that. It doesn't matter if the earliest disciples had sufficient evidence to believe. We don't know that they did. All we have is the so-called evidence above. The kicker is that the Jews of that day did not believe this so-called evidence, nearly 8 million of them in the known world, even though they believed in God, his ability to do miracles, Old Testament prophecy, and were there. So tell me once again why any reasonable person should believe? It simply does not add up.
Even if God exists…
Even if miracles took place…
Even if Christianity is true…
Even if Jesus was resurrected…
Even if there were eyewitnesses…
There’s no reason for US to believe today!
Q: Do you think that belief is subject to the will? Can one "choose" to believe something, such as religious propositions?
A: Apart from the issue of free will, I do think we can will ourselves to believe. Christians do it all the time. It's the will to believe that blinds them to the evidence. William James and Pascal said that if we have doubts we can change them by attending worship, praying and looking for God. I think that happens. I think atheists can will ourselves not to believe too, because of a tragic event. It is a sticky and complicated subject. At some point though, no matter how much we want to make ourselves believe, we cannot do it. I cannot believe. There is nothing I could do to make me believe.
A. It would have been impossible for Tacitus (56 CE – ca 118 CE) to have had any firsthand knowledge of a Historical Jesus since Jesus would have already been dead for at least 23 years before Tacitus was born (assuming the latest date of April 33 CE for the crucifixion).
B. The fire in Rome happened on June 19, 64 which would have made Tacitus only 8 years old at the time. At such an age, Tacitus would have likely been much too young to have recorded anything (if he was literate at that age) especially for a child living in Gaul.
C. The distance from Gaul (setting Paris as the central city) to Jerusalem (by land) is about 3,695 miles. How could Tacitus, who was only 8 years old at the time, have any firsthand knowledge of either the Christians in Roman Palestine or even the fire in Rome over 700 miles away?
D. Tacitus published his first work (Agricola) in 98 CE and his Annals around 114 or 115 or 59 years after the fire in Nero’s Rome and 82 years after the death of the so-called Historical Jesus. Thus, the information about “Christus” (a hapax legomenon) suffering under Pilate shows a confessional belief and not any historical event he knew about. If Jesus is the Christus meant here, then we would expect the Latin “Iesum Christum”. However, Tacitus is likely simply repeating an established tradition as we learn nothing more than that which is not already stated by Josephus and forms the basis for the Apostles Creed: “ . . . passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus, . . . “(suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried;).
Reference: The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3 rd ed., edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (Oxford University Press, 1996)
The subtitle and table of contents are now available. The subtitle is "Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt." It's scheduled to be published in June of this year with a whopping 700 pages! The hardback list price is $95 and the paperback list price is $35. Below is the book description and table of contents:
We know that we descended from a common ancestor. We know this. Evolution is a fact. Many believers agree about this, even a growing number of evangelicals. But what about the origins of life itself? The answer is simple. Ready? Since the evolution of life has a natural explanation then so also does the origins of life, we just don't know how yet. Give science time. Don't punt to a god explanation just as believers shouldn't have done before Darwin. Comprende?
My anthology,
Christianity Is Not Great: How Faith Fails, should be out in October.
You wouldn't believe who wrote a blurb for it! Check out the first two blurbs by clicking on the link. Then pre-order it today!
His list would be something along the following: