Quote of the Day, By Dr. Wallace Marshall

[Re-dated post from April 5, 2015]

Recently Dr. Marshall messaged me with permission to quote him:

I wish I could make your two chapters on the problem of suffering (in Why I Became an Atheist) required reading for all evangelicals. They would banish many a shallow Christianity! Your section on the free-will defense also raises a number of issues that most Christians haven't thought about.

--Dr. Wallace Marshall is a Christian apologist and Director of the Charleston, South Carolina, Reasonable Faith chapter.

Dr. Wallace Marshall Endorses the Outsider Test for Faith

This should not be news to anyone since I'm confident the only way to objectively test one's inherited religious faith is from the outside. The very fact so many Christian apologists have been attacking it shows they really are not interested in knowing whether their religion is true or not. They do so because they tacitly acknowledge their faith cannot pass the test. David Marshall pays lip service to it by acting as if he endorses it, but he guts the test of its key elements.

Enter Dr. Wallace Marshall, whom I debated last Wednesday. [No, to answer your question, I was told it was not recorded.] Marshall told me he endorses the OTF since he is an evidentialist, and gave me permission to quote him. He's the first Christian apologist to do so. See? That wasn't too hard, was it? The problem, as I highlighted in my latest book, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist, is that most Christian apologists reject evidentialism, that is, they deny the need for, and/or existence of sufficient evidence for their faith. 80% of them by my rough estimation. So let me put it to Christian apologists everywhere: what would you think if 80% of Mormon apologists denied the need for, and/or existence of sufficient evidence for their faith? Come on, think like an outsider for once in your lives!

Infinity Is Not A Number, So The Kalam Argument Fails

The concept of infinity is not an actual number. It’s a placeholder for a number beyond our finite conceptions. To see this, just think of an infinite set of even numbers. Now add to that set an infinite number of odd numbers. By adding an infinite set of odd numbers to the infinite set of even numbers we have not increased the actual numbers in that set. So an actual infinite set of numbers does not exist. We could even subtract all numbers with zeros in them, or the numbers 1-1000, or all prime numbers and more, and still have an infinite set of numbers leftover.

With the Kalam argument William Lane Craig's error is in thinking infinity is an actual number. Based on this error he says there cannot be an actual infinite number of past events. Well, of course not. That's because infinity isn’t an actual number. Since infinity is not an actual number we cannot count an infinite number of past events. The way Craig uses infinity assumes there was a beginning an infinite time ago anyway. The truth is that an infinite timeline necessarily lies outside of our epistemic horizons. But this tells us nothing at all about whether the universe is eternal.

I short, the Kalam rests on the claim that infinity is a number. But it isn't. So nothing follows from the fact we cannot count to infinity.

Dr. James Lindsay, a friend of mine who has a Ph.D. in math and wrote the book Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly, says:

Eternal cosmologies deny the existence of a beginning. Eternal means no beginning and no end. No first moment. No last moment. In an eternal cosmological model, we have to reckon time only from defined moments, and we can imagine a timeline of infinite length in both directions from any point that we choose. The way we conceive of that is not of a beginning infinitely long before or an end infinitely long after but rather as “there’s always an earlier moment than any we describe and always a later moment than any we describe.”

Now the point isn’t that we know the universe is eternal. It’s that we don’t know that it isn’t. The whole point, by definition, of an eternal cosmology is that there is no first moment (i.e., no beginning).

He goes on to say,

The Kalam is exactly the kind of cosmology we would expect from people who hadn't yet discovered science…It would be absurd if they weren't so embarrassingly serious.

The Moral Argument to the Existence of God

As far as I can tell, the Islamic State could make the same moral argument to the existence of their god, using their own morality, where it’s okay to rape women, own slaves, chop off heads and burn people alive. Christians like Wallace Marshall would have to agree with their Moral Argument, but disagree with their morals. However, their morals are used as evidence that their god exists, just as his morals are used as evidence his god exists. So certain kinds of morals lead to certain kinds of gods. Or certain kinds of gods are used to justify certain kinds of morals. Which comes first? I’m as sure as sure can be that the morals come first. Where do believers get their morals from? That’s as tricky of a question as it is for me. But I can guarantee you Marshall does not get his morals from the Bible. For if he did, his morals would look much like the morals of the Islamic State. For in the Bible we see much of the same things, like slavery, holy wars, genocide or ethnic cleansing, and Inquisitions.

Regardless, there is no time in the history of ethics where Marshall could not make this argument based on the morals of his day. He could own slaves, offer up his child to Yahweh or have sex slaves and be heard to argue at the local pub that his god is the source of objective morals. This argument to god from morals is empty rhetoric without any content.

Since morals come first, I think Philosopher Raymond Bradley has produced a good counter-argument. Bradley: “If there are universal objective moral truths, then there is no God of the Bible. He then provides some universal objective moral truths that are counter to biblical morality: 1) “It is morally wrong to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing”; 2) “It is morally wrong to provide one’s troops with young women captive with the prospect of their being used as sex slaves”; 3) “It is morally wrong to make people cannibalize their friends and family”; 4) “It is morally wrong to practice human sacrifice, by burning or otherwise”; 5) “It is morally wrong to torture people endlessly for their beliefs.” He argues that “if we take these moral principles as objective ones, as Christians themselves do, then since we find them commanded and permitted by the God of the Bible, he does not exist.”

My Opening Debate Statement vs Wallace Marshall

The details of the debate can be seen here on Facebook. Below is my 20 minute opening statement. Enjoy below.

Christianity or Atheism? Which Makes More Sense?

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Come Out To SASHAcon On March 19-20th. I'll Be One of the Speakers.

Come out to SASHAcon on March 19-20th. I'll be one of the speakers. LINK.

Why Should We Believe Meme

On Twitter Eric @edes1103 created this meme from something in my book, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice From an Atheist.

I'm Debating Dr. Wallace Marshall This Wednesday On the Existence of God

I'm going to debate Dr. Wallace Marshall this coming Wednesday, as announced here on Facebook. Wallace appears to have read my magnum opus and says two chapters in it should be "required reading for all evangelicals." Good! I searched and found a debate between Wallace and Phillip Drum on a similar topic. See what you think. Any suggestions?

Volume 2 of Chris Rodda's "Liars for Jesus" Is Now Available

I regard Chris Rodda's work in exposing the lies of David Barton and other Christians of his ilk as indispensable in our over-all fight for a sane America. There are many areas of concern we need to be vigilant about. This is one of them. In 2006 Chris Rodda's Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History, Vol. 1 was published. Now the long awaited 2nd volume is out. My readers should be aware of her work. I utilized it in chapter 11 of my book, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist.

Liars for Jesus debunks many of the historical lies invented and used by the Christian nationalist history revisionists in their efforts to further their far right political agenda and destroy the wall of separation between church and state in America. Liars for Jesus is not a book about religion. It is a history book, setting the record straight by presenting and fully documenting the true stories and historical facts that are distorted in the "Christian nation" pseudo-history of our country.

Daniel Dennett On The Good Vs Bad Of A Religion

Hemant Mehta On the Outsider Test for Faith

Peter Enns Wrote Another Book, "The Sin of Certainty"

I am very uncertain about faith!

Peter Enns has a new book titled, The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our "Correct" Beliefs, to be released on April 5th. I thought I'd capture a photo of me with it, so the rest of you would be jealous I was sent a free review copy and you weren't!

The controversial evangelical Bible scholar...explains how Christians mistake “certainty” and “correct belief” for faith when what God really desires is trust and intimacy. Combining Enns’ reflections of his own spiritual journey with an examination of Scripture, The Sin of Certainty models an acceptance of mystery and paradox that all believers can follow and why God prefers this path because it is only this way by which we can become mature disciples who truly trust God. It gives Christians who have known only the demand for certainty permission to view faith on their own flawed, uncertain, yet heartfelt, terms.

God Has Watched Every Molestation And Did Nothing

If you say God has good reasons for allowing this child abuse, then his reasons must be beneficial for the very children who were molested. His reasons for allowing this to happen cannot merely be to teach the rest of us lessons. Otherwise the victims are being used as fodder for what God wants to teach us. So let's talk again about why a perfectly good God allows such things. Why? Given the amount of child abuse his reasons must be discernible to us enough to conclude they are good ones. Otherwise, an all knowledgeable God would know that because of his inaction many people would not believe in him.

The Story Of The Exorcist Is Purely A Religious Thing!

New Book by Sean B. Carroll, The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters

How does life work? How does nature produce the right numbers of zebras and lions on the African savanna, or fish in the ocean? How do our bodies produce the right numbers of cells in our organs and bloodstream? In The Serengeti Rules, award-winning biologist and author Sean Carroll tells the stories of the pioneering scientists who sought the answers to such simple yet profoundly important questions, and shows how their discoveries matter for our health and the health of the planet we depend upon.

One of the most important revelations about the natural world is that everything is regulated--there are rules that regulate the amount of every molecule in our bodies and rules that govern the numbers of every animal and plant in the wild. And the most surprising revelation about the rules that regulate life at such different scales is that they are remarkably similar--there is a common underlying logic of life. Carroll recounts how our deep knowledge of the rules and logic of the human body has spurred the advent of revolutionary life-saving medicines, and makes the compelling case that it is now time to use the Serengeti Rules to heal our ailing planet.

A bold and inspiring synthesis by one of our most accomplished biologists and gifted storytellers, The Serengeti Rules is the first book to illuminate how life works at vastly different scales. Read it and you will never look at the world the same way again. LINK

What Does Your God Actually Do?

It won't do to say God works through people when every religious person would say the same thing. What does your God actually do that can be objectively measured? Why does s/he need anything or anyone to do this work?

Michael Moore's Satire "Where To Invade Next?" Is Both Hilarious and Brilliant!

I've written a lot about ridicule and satire. I've defended their use in our religious and cultural debates in several posts here at DC. I argue ridicule and satire work to change minds. Ridicule works to the degree there is truth behind it.

Enter Michael Moore with his just released movie, "Where To Invade Next?" It is both very funny and based on fact. Below for your consideration I'm including a trailer along with an interview he did with Stephen Colbert. If you care about the direction of America this is a don't miss movie, a movie that is neither liberal nor conservative. Chris Woods, a friend of mine and movie aficionado wrote, "IMO, Michael Moore's Where To Invade Next is not only the best Michael Moore movie I've seen, but also the best movie I've seen so far this year." I agree.

There were three segments to Moore's movie that really touched me. The children in France are fed good lunches in their schools, compared to the shit that gets fed to American students in our schools. Why does this continue! It's a complete and utter disgrace.

In another segment we're told of the recent Tunisian political revolution where women have successfully risen up to gain equal rights, something I hadn't heard of before. The president was interviewed by Moore, who is clearly a Muslim with conservative Muslim values (i.e., repressive of women), but he has come to embrace secularism, or the separation of State and Church, where people should be free to live the way they desire irrespective of their religious values. Now there's an idea Christians should wish upon the Muslim world. Why don't more of them wish it upon us in America! That befuddles me.

Then in a segment directly following the Tunisian one, Moore interviews Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, who was the first woman in the world to be elected head of state, in Iceland. For about what seemed to be ten minutes afterward, there was a superior montage of women leaders and activists around the world, showing what women have accomplished. It was inspiring. Viewers could clearly understand that it's time for women to take charge of the world. The rule of testosterone-driven male egoists should end, and I agree wholeheartedly. [Of course, in America we should tackle one problem at a time. So while Moore and I truly think women should lead us, both he and I endorse Bernie Sanders for President. Here are his reasons why.

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"Evangelical Christianity’s Brand Is Used Up" by Dr. Valerie Tarico

I think it's time evangelicals grasp what they have done to their own branding as evangelicals. They have mucked up the word "evangelical." They should abandon using the description or change their beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. Excellent essay! I love how Tarico writes, using simple bullet points for easy comprehension. Enjoy.

• Evangelical means obsessed with sex.
• Evangelical means arrogant.
• Evangelical means fearful and bigoted.
• Evangelical means indifferent to truth.
• Evangelical means gullible and greedy.
• Evangelical means ignorant.
• Evangelical means predatory.
• Evangelical means mean. LINK.

The Book "God or Godless" is Going Out of Print. Who's To Blame?

A good debate book should have two opponents who are more or less equally matched. Or, almost certainly more to the point, the issues debated should be ones that can be reasonably debated. Baker Books, a major Christian publisher, contracted for our co-written book in hopes it would foster good discussion, and/or help promote Christianity. Rauser didn't keep up his end of this bargain, in my opinion. But he couldn't, because no matter how smart or educated he is, he was defending the indefensible. I admire his passion and evangelistic zeal, but what he tried to do cannot reasonably be done.

This book is going out of print. I don't think Rauser understands how disappointed I am about this. I put a lot of effort into it. He's offering some excuses as to why our book didn't sell well. But he offered no evidence. He concludes he was not to blame. So I wrote on Ten Lessons From Randal Rauser On How Not to Lose Gracefully.

I have a different view. Had the truth been on Rauser's side, had he beat me--had he trounced me--the book would've sold better, much better. There are other factors to be sure. Popular authors get more readers regardless of the content. So let's be honest, neither of us are all that popular with the Christian audience this book was aimed at. Furthermore, quality arguments are not always perceived as such by readers, if they're couched in simple language. I almost always try to keep it as simple as I can without being simplistic. In this book we both used simple language. So the book was perceived as lacking in depth, given some of the Amazon reviews.

UPDATE: Great News! It looks like it's not gone out of print after all.

I'm Seeking More Confirmation Bias Stories

Let's say you're into football as a Cowboy fan. You don't care much at all how other teams do. You just root for the Cowboys. Come Super Bowl time this past year you could care less who won. But someone challenges you to predict the winner. So you study it out. You have no biases that would directly affect a clear-headed judgement. But if your Cowboys were in the Super Bowl it would affect a clear-headed judgment.

There are biases that get in the way of a clear-headed judgement and there are biases that don't. It depends on such things as the issue, how important it is to you, how much of your social network depends on your having the same belief, how long of a prior commitment you have had to your belief, and what the punishments and rewards are for maintaining said belief.

I said I could multiply these examples by the hundreds. So here's where my readers come in. Provide analogies that are directly relevant to believers who need to remove their confirmation bias, as they re-examine their faith for the first time, upon becoming adults. I'll send a free signed copy of my recent book, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheistto the person getting the most upvotes (within the continental US).

Excellent Satire: Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

LINK.

The Finalized Cover For My Forthcoming Anthology

You can pre-order it on Amazon. I claim methodological naturalism is a bogeyman that no one needs to worry about in the pursuit of scientific truth. To believers who say otherwise, that our conclusions are dictated by a prior commitment to naturalistic explanations, my challenge is to test that false assumption from the chapters in this book.

New Book, "The Illusion of God's Presence: The Biological Origins of Spiritual Longing"

This new book is written by computational biologist John C. Wathey. LINK. According to one reviewer on Amazon, Wathey

...cuts to the heart of religion’s appeal: the strong emotional pull of belief and its promise to fill what has been called “the God-shaped vacuum in our hearts and minds.” As the author notes in his preface, the New Atheists have “largely ignored the real reason that most believers believe: their personal experience of the presence of God.” This book examines that subjective religious experience, offering a cogent description of its likely biological and psychological underpinnings.

It looks like a fantastic book. I would prefer the book was titled The Delusion of God's Presence, but that's just me. Regardless, gone is the cockamamie notion of the authenticating private subjective witness of a god in our lives (i.e., the god named holy spirit). Anyone who takes it seriously is indeed deluded. There are Christian apologists like Norman Geisler and Victor Reppert (I think) who don't agree with it, like me. What they should see is the lengths Christian apologists will go to defend their evangelical faith. And since that's obviously the case here, they should reflect on the lengths they themselves go to defend their evangelical faith.

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New Atheist Book, "God's Gravediggers: Why No Deity Exists"

This brand new atheist book by philosopher Raymond D. Bradley looks very interesting to me. It has blurbs written by Graham Oppy and Theodore Drange. LINK.

Define Faith? It's Quite Easy Really

Faith should one day be labelled a cognitive bias. It keeps one's cognitive faculties from functioning properly! Faith is an irrational, unevidenced or misplaced trust in something or someone. Believers have it and don't know it, just as other religious adherents in other religious faiths do. Christian, I probably cannot convince you of this, just as you wouldn't be able to convince them of that.

New Atheism, Meet Existential Risk Studies!

I just wanted to let denizens of this blog know that I recently published an article in The Humanist about why the "new atheist" movement will only become more important and urgently needed in the future. Below is a paragraph from the article in which I discuss an idea that I've also explored on Debunking Christianity. Thoughts and feedback are always welcome, and I discuss here (curiosity and kindness!). I hope readers enjoy it.

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Loftus vs Murray Debate WAS JESUS RAISED FROM THE DEAD?

The Secular Student Alliance and Ratio Christi: Campus Apologetics Alliance at Western Michigan University present a debate between myself and Abdu Murray. You know about me. Abdu Murray is a former Muslim turned Christian. "Abdu holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Michigan and earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School. As an attorney, Abdu was named several times in Best Lawyers in America and Michigan Super Lawyer. Abdu is the Scholar in Residence of Christian Thought and Apologetics at the Josh McDowell Institute of Oklahoma Wesleyan University." Abdu has also authored two books and works as the North American Director and a speaker at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. LINK. We know each other and I consider Abdu a friend.

"Unless the Democrats Run Sanders, A Trump Nomination Means a Trump Presidency"

I think this story in Current Affairs should be read by anyone who does not want a Trump Presidency.

A Clinton/Trump match should not just worry Democrats. It should terrify them. They should be doing everything possible to avoid it. A Trump/Sanders contest, however, looks very different indeed...Sanders is an almost perfect secret weapon against Trump. He can pull off the only maneuver that is capable of neutralizing Trump: ignoring him and actually keeping the focus on the issues. LINK.

What Does It Mean To Be Open-Minded? Or Closed-Minded?

Open-minded people are willing to honestly consider evidence that could change their minds. Closed-minded people will not. No one is completely open-minded. No one is completely closed-minded.

There are two problems we face in order to cultivate the intellectual virtue of open-mindedness. The first is to learn what constitutes evidence, since most people are unreasonably persuaded because of anecdotal evidence, or fallacious arguments substituting for the lack of evidence, or even peer-pressure or the accidents of birth into a particular family or a different culture. The second is to learn to avoid confirmation bias as much as possible, which Michael Shermer calls "the mother of all biases." [In The Believing Brain, p. 259].Once we learn about these problems and recognize them as the serious ones they really are, and that they stand in the way of a clear-headed investigation of the truth, we can proceed to be honest investigators of the truth. We would know what kind of evidence to look for and be better able to see any bias we might have and adjust for it.

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Quote of the Day, by ephemerol On the OTF