Go Bernie Sanders!

So I was sitting here wondering where I should watch the Democratic presidential debate. Then it hit me. I'll betcha there are like-minded fans of Bernie Sanders who are getting together to watch it. So I ran a search, found a home and invited myself over. Little did I know but that Bernie mentioned people like me who were getting together to watch the debate.

Bernie won, hands down. While Hilliary and the others didn't do poorly and would all make good presidents, Bernie has lit a fire of hope in many of us. He's asking for a political revolution. Nothing less than that will get us moving again and meeting the needs of the American people. Go Bernie!

The Stages of Losing Christian Faith and Discovering Reality

1.  Denial - In this stage the believer is confronted with facts that attacks both the credibility of the so-called “truths of the Bible" and the Christian faith.  Here the believer often counters with apologetically programmed or canned responses.

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My Book Is # 1 in Religious Philosophy Books

There is a Religious Philosophy category of books, and as of today mine is ranked #1.That's not too shabby I suppose. What interests me are the top 100 books in this category. Scroll down through them. Looks like some good books are in the pipeline, and others of interest. Here are four of them having to do with suffering:

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My Latest Book is Now Being Shipped. It Just Might Be My Best One Yet!

If Theism Is Dead, What Then? James Lindsay Responds.

Recently I wrote a blurb for James Lindsay's new book, Everybody Is Wrong About God.I said:

Lindsay correctly argues in this book that theism (or “God”) is dead, even though most people don’t realize it yet, echoing the words of Nietzsche’s madman. Lindsay surprisingly goes on to argue that if theism is dead then so is atheism. For without theism we shouldn’t be atheists either, just human beings living in a post-theistic secular society where the relevancy of theism for our lives is beneath serious consideration. Lindsay calls us to completely rethink both theism and atheism, and he informs us what this means and how we should proceed into the future. This is a very thought provoking book, sure to be controversial. I love it!

Privately though, I emailed him some concerns:

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Richard C. Miller's Book On the Resurrection Is Original and Significant

M. David Litwa recently reviewed the book Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity, by Richard C. Miller, calling it both original and significant.

Description: This book offers an original interpretation of the origin and early reception of the most fundamental claim of Christianity: Jesus’ resurrection. Richard Miller contends that the earliest Christians would not have considered the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ resurrection to be literal or historical, but instead would have recognized this narrative as an instance of the trope of divine translation, common within the Hellenistic and Roman mythic traditions. Given this framework, Miller argues, early Christians would have understood the resurrection story as fictitious rather than historical in nature. By drawing connections between the Gospels and ancient Greek and Roman literature, Miller makes the case that the narratives of the resurrection and ascension of Christ applied extensive and unmistakable structural and symbolic language common to Mediterranean "translation fables," stock story patterns derived particularly from the archetypal myths of Heracles and Romulus. In the course of his argument, the author applies a critical lens to the referential and mimetic nature of the Gospel stories, and suggests that adapting the "translation fable" trope to accounts of Jesus’ resurrection functioned to exalt him to the level of the heroes, demigods, and emperors of the Hellenistic and Roman world. Miller’s contentions have significant implications for New Testament scholarship and will provoke discussion among scholars of early Christianity and Classical studies. Full review here.

10 Ways Right-Wing Christians Are Destroying Christianity

LINK.

The World WILL NOT end on October 7

Camping's followers live on

I have written a  newspaper column on why those who believe the world will end on October 7 do not understand their Bibles. Because of space constraints in the newspaper, I would like  to add a further explanation for why using 1,600 days is arbitrary. One must read the newspaper column first to understand my explanation here.

According to an essay by Chris McCann, a promoter of this end date, he can substitute a measure of time for a meaure of physical dimension in Revelation 14:20 because of what is said in Psalm 39:4-5 (King James Version). Note his reasoning:

“If their blood is flowing out of the winepress for the space of '1,600 furlongs,' we wonder if it is possible that God is indicating that the life of the wicked will go on for a period of time of 1,600 days. Is that possible? Can we understand 'furlongs' to represent ‘days’? So we take that question to the Bible, like we took all the other questions and we search the Bible to see if we can make that kind of spiritual substitution. When God is speaking of a 'space' of furlongs, can we understand it as 'days'? There are actually several verses that provide Biblical justification for making that kind of substitution. For instance, it says in Psalm 39:4-5:

JEHOVAH, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.”

However, making such a "spiritual" analogy between Psalm 39:4-5 and Revelation 14:20 only highlights how poorly and arbitrarily McCann chooses which numbers to use.

First, the biblical author is speaking of HIS days (“my days”), and not those of anything else in Psalm 39:4-5.

Second, McCann fails to tell us why he chose the number of Revelation 14:20 to signify the number of days after May 21, 2011, when there are many other numbers in Revelation that one could choose (e.g., 5 months of torture in Revelation 9:5).

Third, McCann fails to understand the nature of Hebrew poetic parallelism, wherein a line can simply restate or go beyond a previous line. In this case, “nothing before me” seems to be a further description of a “handbreath.”

That is to say, a “handbreath” seems to be a further description for a small or even zero amount (“as nothing before me”).

If so, one can just as well argue that there will be a ZERO amount of days (not 1,600 days) between May 21, 2011 and the end of the world.

One should not let these apocalyptic interpreters forget that it is atheists who have been 100% correct in predicting that those end dates will fail, while it is believers who have been 100% incorrect. In other words, atheists (and other skeptics) have been the best "prophets" when it comes to these end dates.

Christian Chiakulas On "What Must I Believe to Be a Christian?"

I am a Christian, and I don't believe that Jesus was God. I don't believe Mary was a virgin, or that God exists as a "trinity." I certainly do not believe Jesus died for my sins or those of anybody else, and perhaps most shocking, I do not believe Jesus rose from the dead. LINK.

I take everyone at their word when calling themselves Christians. If that's what they call themselves then that's what they are. Who am I to decide between them anyway? That's for Christians themselves to decide, not me. Good luck! Argue among yourselves and come back when there is a consensus. Then I'll debunk it. ;-)

What is So Bad About Christianity?

This site is an interesting one, asking What is so Bad about Christianity? There's a book associated with it titled, Beyond Belief: Two thousand years of bad faith in the Christian Church, written by James McDonald.Looks similar to my anthology, Christianity Is Not Great: How Faith Fails.Read through them both!

590 Reasons Why Christianity is False

This is an interesting site sharing 590 reasons why Christianity is false, maintained by Michael Runyan. The last time I checked it only listed 299 reasons!? Hey, that's a lot of reasons, some much better than others but the sheer number of reasons is er, unimpressive! ;-) When it comes to reason #2 I'm quoted. LINK.

This is F*cking Insane

My heart aches for people in Syria who want peace and prosperity. Who Is Fighting Whom in Syria? Wow! No wonder so many people are fleeing the area. But few countries care to harbor very many of these refugees, some for fear they'll bring a religion of violence with them. This is f*cking insane. Wow!

Ten Reasons Why Women Should Question Christianity

Karen Garst The Faithless Feminist, wrote this essay below:

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For a Brief Moment In Time

My book was the # 1 new release in Christian apologetics books for a brief moment in time.

19 Things Other Cultures Practice That You’ll Never Believe

Okay, the headline is not mine. It does get your attention though, and it should. You should see how others practice their religious rituals. Extremely eyeopening!

Brenna Smith of Rant.Inc., wrote this as an introduction:

Before I became a writer, I got my degree in Anthropology, the study of humans, their culture, their biology, their history and their evolution (I suppose I should say “our,” but you get the idea). One of the most important aspects of studying Cultural Anthropology is understanding the concept of cultural relativism, “the principle that an individual human’s beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual’s own culture.”

That essentially means put yourself in their shoes. In anthropology, we don’t demonize or criticize other culture’s practices, but instead try to understand why they do what they do within the context of their culture. No matter how strange, weird or plain horrific these cultural practices may seem to us within the context of our culture.

Keeping cultural relativism in mind, here are 19 cultural practices from around the world that you won’t believe exist (within the confines of your culture), along with some context to help you understand why they do what they do. LINK.

I have no doubt these other cultures would be as shocked with our religious rituals as we are with theirs. Ahhhh, but the Christian rituals are correct rituals while theirs are incorrect ones, right? Right? Nothing so destroys the so-called virtue of religious faith but seeing a different group of people who hail the virtue of a different faith. For then their own religious rituals are seen for what they truly are, as cultural, based on nothing more than ancient superstitious beliefs. It takes a brilliant mind to defend one's own religious rituals of life stemming from ancient superstitious people, but then faith makes otherwise brilliant people look, well, dumb, as we all know too well.

My Interview With The Legion of Reason

LINK. The interview with me begins at the 30:15 mark. My friend Nathan Phelps was one of the people doing this interview. The first part is an interview with Chris Matheson who wrote the book The Story of God.

My New Book Is In The House!

My new book is in the house! Now that I have my copies it shouldn't be long until everyone else will get theirs too.

Click this link to get it:

How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist.

Annual Islamic Hajj Pilgrimage Leaves at Least 719 People Dead and 863 Injured: God Is Great!

The Dead Line the Street at Mina

"Saudi Arabia's crown prince has ordered an investigation after a stampede at the annual Hajj pilgrimage left at least 719 people dead and 863 injured, according to state media."  Story Here

George Will on Torture, Solitary Confinement, and Hell

Most Christians who reject an everlasting punishment in a literal hell, with fire and brimstone, embrace a softer view of hell. Rather than embrace a literal interpretation of most NT passages they choose instead a metaphorical view based on a small minority of them. To do this they gerrymander the biblical texts around in order to find the real canon inside the biblical canon.

The metaphorical view of hell is that sinners are merely banished from God's presence forever. Hell is pictured something like a solitary confinement in a jail cell, where sinners are given what they desire, to be left alone. Since nothing is as harsh as eternally conscious suffering in flames of fire, it's believed the metaphorical view softens the horrific tortures of hell.

While this is true, consider how painful solitary confinement would be for an eternity. George Will, whom I generally detest, wrote about the pain of solitary confinement in "The torture of solitary confinement" for The Washington Post (Feb 2013). He wrote:

Supermax prisons isolate inmates from social contact. Often prisoners are in their cells, sometimes smaller than 8 by 12 feet, 23 hours a day, released only for a shower or exercise in a small fenced-in outdoor space. Isolation changes the way the brain works, often making individuals more impulsive, less able to control themselves. The mental pain of solitary confinement is crippling: Brain studies reveal durable impairments and abnormalities in individuals denied social interaction. Plainly put, prisoners often lose their minds. LINK.

This still depicts tortures beyond what human beings could endure, especially if consciously suffering them forever. So we still have a barbaric God that no one should trust in, much less worship. The punishment would still not fit the crimes committed in this life.

Try again.

My Interview for The Humanist Hour

In this episode of the Humanist Hour we talk about my upcoming book, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist.LINK.

Coming Soon: Dr. James Lindsay's Book "Everybody is Wrong About God"

On his blog Lindsay shares the Preface and Contents to this book. In his words:

Everybody Is Wrong About God is, frankly, an ambitious project of mine in which I aim to completely pull the rug out from under theism and theology. With them, therefore, atheism has to go too. My goal, then, is nothing less than turning the first page in a new chapter, one that points us toward a new post-theistic phase in human history--one that leaves God behind, for good (and I mean that both ways).

I wrote a blurb for it:

Lindsay correctly argues in this book that theism (or “God”) is dead, even though most people don’t realize it yet, echoing the words of Nietzsche’s madman. Lindsay surprisingly goes on to argue that if theism is dead then so is atheism. For without theism we shouldn’t be atheists either, just human beings living in a post-theistic secular society where the relevancy of theism for our lives is beneath serious consideration. Lindsay calls us to completely rethink both theism and atheism, and he informs us what this means and how we should proceed into the future. This is a very thought provoking book, sure to be controversial. I love it!

Dr. Jim Beilby: "In the face of evils like the holocaust, silence is appropriate."

On Facebook I shared the following poster:

Afterward I had a brief exchange with a Christian simpleton. He was not impressed to say the least, describing the poster with a "LMAO" or "laugh my ass off." I called him a simpleton, saying he needs to be informed that this is a serious problem for his faith by someone on his side. So along came Dr. James K. Beilby who did just that. Beilby is the author and editor of a growing number of books seen here on Amazon. He's a Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Bethel University (Minnesota). His areas of expertise are systematic and philosophical theology, apologetics, and ethics. He has criticized two of Alvin Plantinga's views in the philosophy of religion: 1) his epistemology, and 2) his Evolutionary Argument Against Evolution, as Ex-Apologist notes.

It's good there are people on both sides of our debates who are consistently willing to honestly set the record straight, people who are not so ideologically driven that they lose sight of the primary goal of being honest seekers of the truth. Here is what Jim wrote:

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Professor Keith Parsons On Darwin the Philosopher

Dr. Parsons recently argued that Darwin engaged in philosophical questions. Given the title to his post, the point is that Darwin was also a philosopher. What does Parsons say is the criteria for when someone is engaging in philosophy, as opposed to science? He says this:

In cases ... where the evidence will not settle the dispute, scientists must employ philosophical arguments. And they do. Therefore, the suggestion that science can simply replace philosophy is wrong for the reason that, as [Thomas] Kuhn observed, scientific debates often embed—or are embedded within—philosophical debates. These philosophical differences often cannot be settled by straightforward empirical means, but must be addressed with philosophical argument. Science cannot replace philosophy because philosophy is an essential part of the scientific enterprise. Kuhn was wrong about many things, but on this point he was absolutely right.

I had commented previously on what makes for philosophy right here. And I have no bone to pick with philosophy per se. But this is an interesting question. I think we can agree that mere reasoning is not equivalent to philosophy, so scientific reasoning is not necessarily doing philosophy. We should also agree that we don't need to wait until everyone agrees that a particular dispute has been settled by science, before we can say scientists are no longer doing philosophy when reasoning about the evidence. This was the case in Darwin's day, but the dispute over evolution has been settled in our day. I think the implications about evolution are settled too. What Parsons needs to do is show why anyone should wait until evolution deniers agree that this dispute has been settled, before saying evolutionists are not doing philosophy. So I see no reason to accept that criteria with regard to his specific example.

On Defining Atheism

I was recently sent a book to review, by Franz Kiekeben, called The Truth About God which is a whistlestop tour, I think, through atheism and counter-apologetics to arrive at the conclusion not that God is improbable, but that God is impossible. I will be interested to see where that goes.

Why I mention this is that I am pleased the author started off the book by briefly sketching out the different ways of seeing atheism and stating that there is a modern trend to defining atheism as a lack of belief in God. This is something upon which I have commented in various places before, and something which I feel quite strongly about.

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I Met With Christian Philosopher Chad V. Meister Today

Who is he? On Amazon we read: "I am Professor of Philosophy at Bethel College in Indiana, USA. I'm a Christian philosopher and most of my books have to do with God or some subject related to God or Christianity. But I also have a deep appreciation for other faith traditions and for thoughtful skeptics, agnostics, and atheists as well. In fact, some of my books include writings of leading thinkers from the major world religions and from those who deny the reality of God altogether. As I see it, there is tremendous value in the dialogue, and much to learn from those with whom we disagree."


His mother lives about 15 minutes away from me. How cool is that? Just before we met he said he got an email from William Lane Craig about an upcoming book. How cool is that? And we traded books. That too is cool! I made out on that deal since the paperback of The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion is $75.

He's working on a six volume work that will include the best authors in their respective fields on the problem of evil. He seemed somewhat interested in editing a Zondervan Five Views book on my Outsider Test for Faith, so we'll see if that pans out.

One thing impressive about Chad is that he's first and foremost a philosopher, an educator. He doesn't appear to have an axe to grind, nor anything to sell. From all I can tell he's interested in the search for truth. I'm also impressed that he wants a copy of my new book, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist, so I'll be sending him one.We'll probably run ideas past each other in the future. Good time. Good person. Good discussion.

Jerry Coyne Announces My New Book!

Well this is quite an honor! In the dedication to my book I mention four scholarly friends I consider to be intellectual giants. These are the scholars who have been the most encouraging to me over the years, and from whom I've learned the most. Care to guess who they might be?

All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists, by Lawrence Krauss.

LINK.

Hermeneutical Fun with the Bible, Salvation and Christology

Christian salvation is an eclectic mix of cutting and pasting New Testament verses together to make an ancient dogma sound logical.  Accordingly, without human ingenuity, even Jesus himself cannot explain how one is to obtain salvation.  Ironically, the ramblings of Jesus about the Kingdom in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas are on par with those of the Synoptic Gospels or John.

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On the "Right Side of Futurology": Atheism and Human Extinction

Dan Barker, echoing an idea expressed by many atheists, describes theology as “a subject without an object.” Since there's little reason for thinking a God exists – much less the God of the Bible – the entire field is ultimately vacuous, despite the grandiloquent rigamarole of, as Jerry Coyne puts it, Sophisticated Theologians(TM). Theology studies nothing. Its heart and soul is a phenomenon that almost certainly doesn't exist.

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Dr. Ben Carson's Bible-Based Taxes

I have written a newspaper column about Dr. Ben Carson's Bible-Based taxation system. Aside from the problems of interpreting the "tithe" in its original context, Carson omits the fact that the Bible also mandates that 10% of what ancient Israel produces be devoted to social welfare causes.

An Older Review of My Book WIBA

LINK. Full text below:

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13 Jobs Bible-Believing Kentucky Marriage Clerk Probably Shouldn’t Apply For

I had previously posted this on my Facebook wall but not here. Enjoy.

"Here it Comes" My Book Went to Print Today!

The following clip from "The Wrath of Khan" expresses my thoughts as I ponder the impact of my book, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist.

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