Karen Gorder Garst: Why Every Woman Knows Her Body Was NOT the Creation of an Intelligent Designer
This is an excellent essay by Dr. Garst. She writes concerning childbirth, the menstrual cycle, clitoris, and breasts. Here's a money quote concerning childbirth:
"The reason for the pain in childbirth is understandable with a quick lesson in evolution. When our ancestors started to walk upright, the shape of the pelvis began to change to accommodate a walking gait. Specifically, a narrower pelvis developed. Over hundreds of thousands of years, human brains gradually became more complex and grew bigger to accommodate a higher level of intelligence. The coincidence of these two changes resulted in a baby with a larger head being delivered through a narrower pelvis. Pain, therefore, results as the mother pushes a bigger baby through a smaller opening. (Today, where a child cannot be delivered through this opening, a caesarean section must be performed.)" LINK.At the end of her essay Garst recommends a book I blurbed which was written by Dr. Abby Hafer, The Not-So-Intelligent Designer: Why Evolution Explains the Human Body and Intelligent Design Does Not. Hafer wrote a chapter for my soon to be released anthology Christianity in the Light of Science: Critically Examining the World's Largest Religion. Garst wrote a blurb for that anthology. There, that about covers everything. ;-) Enjoy. Go read it. Now. Read and learn.
Michael Moore On His New Film "Where to Invade Next"
I've recommended this film before right here. He sent out fundraising email saying you'll get a free DVD of it if you send the progressive MoveOn organization 27 bucks. Here's what he said about his film:
My latest film, "Where to Invade Next," comes out on DVD today!
OK, let me tell you a little about the film—and why I think it's a great fit for MoveOn members like you and me. "Where to Invade Next" is, as one critic pointed out, my “most dangerous and subversive film.”
You Don't Need a PhD to Criticize Religion
Hemant Mehta nails this subject. It goes right along with what I'm writing in my book Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End. The full text of his talk can be found below.
Robert Conner, Christianity’s Critics: The Romans Meet Jesus, Part 5
Robert Conner studied Greek, Hebrew, some Aramaic and even Coptic back in the mid-70's at Western Kentucky University. He's written nine books, including Jesus the Sorcerer, The Secret Gospel of Mark and Magic in Christianity, as well as a number of articles and essays. If you want a primer on what the earliest critics of Christianity had to say about this new cult then I'm publishing an essay he wrote in several parts, with approval. This is Part 5. To get up to speed follow this tag.
Animated map shows how religion spread around the world
Here's how five major world religions spread. If you look into it you'll find they spread by conquest. That's a nice way to get people to believe, isn't it? Those of us raised in a particular culture are taught to believe what was forced on our ancestors by killing and the threat of sword. You believe what you were taught to believe and that's it.
Galileo, The Bible, and Science
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| Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) |
Robert Conner, Christianity’s Critics: The Romans Meet Jesus, Part 4
Robert Conner studied Greek, Hebrew, some Aramaic and even Coptic back in the mid-70's at Western Kentucky University. He's written nine books, including Jesus the Sorcerer, The Secret Gospel of Mark and Magic in Christianity, as well as a number of articles and essays. If you want a primer on what the earliest critics of Christianity had to say about this new cult then I'm publishing an essay he wrote in several parts, with approval. This is Part 4. To get up to speed follow this tag.
The Introduction To My Last Book, "Unapologetic"
Introduction
This
will probably be the last book I’ll write on the topic of religion. I think
I’ve said all I need to say. I’ve kicked this dead rodent of the Christian
faith into a lifeless blob so many times there is nothing left of it. Mine has
been a publishing career that stretches back ten years and ends with this, my
tenth book.
Bernie's Full Speech Today In Fort Wayne, Indiana
Watch it! Become informed. Vote for him. He's what we need in America.
Do you know who is the biggest welfare recipient? It's the Walton family, owners of Walmart. Keep in mind their net worth is 149 billion dollars. They own more wealth than the bottom 40% of the people in America. But they don't pay their employees a decent wage so many of them have to get food stamps and depend on Medicare to the tune of $3 billion dollars a year. You know who pays for that? The taxpayer.
We learned this today from Bernie. We need Bernie! Now! He will make the filthy rich pay their fair share. We're tired of supporting them. Right? Right!
Do you know who is the biggest welfare recipient? It's the Walton family, owners of Walmart. Keep in mind their net worth is 149 billion dollars. They own more wealth than the bottom 40% of the people in America. But they don't pay their employees a decent wage so many of them have to get food stamps and depend on Medicare to the tune of $3 billion dollars a year. You know who pays for that? The taxpayer.
We learned this today from Bernie. We need Bernie! Now! He will make the filthy rich pay their fair share. We're tired of supporting them. Right? Right!
Raymond D. Bradley's Book "God's Gravediggers" is Fantastic
But wait? Haven't we heard of God's death before, from Nietzsche and many others? And isn't he/she/it still alive as a concept in the minds of millions of believers? Yes. But he's really dead. Believers just don't know it yet. As I will argue in my upcoming book, Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End, just like Norm Bates in the Hitchcock thriller Psycho, who continued believing his mother was still alive when she was dead, so also believers have propped up a dead God upstairs in a rocking chair and believe he's alive and talks to them too. I say good riddance.
This book of Bradley's is one I compare to the late Michael Martin's book, "The Case Against Christianity" (1995). I highly recommend them both, although I prefer "God's Gravedigger" since Bradley shares his own personal journey in it, and since he interacts with current literature. LINK.
Robert Price's Debate Opener Against William Lane Craig Eviscerates Craig's Apologetics
Robert M. Price's debate opener against William Lane Craig was so good that Craig could only respond by using that which Price had already eviscerated to make his case! He mainly responded by appealing to the majority of scholars and the text of the Bible.
The Last Sermon Atheist John W. Loftus Ever Preached
This sermon was delivered on February 15th 1998, at the Fairview Missionary Church in Angola, Indiana, for Laity Sunday. I was not an atheist at the time. I was a liberal in an evangelical church who was about to become an agnostic in just a few months. After reading a passage in Exodus about Moses, I said: "Moses was perhaps the greatest figure in the Old Testament." I used the word "figure" intentionally. At the time I believed Moses was largely a fictionalized character, a "figure" that we could learn important lessons about living, as I did about some of the other characters I mentioned from the Bible. I remember thinking I didn't say anything I didn't believe. But that didn't mean I thought the story about Moses or the others were actually true.
Valerie Tarico On How Religion Can Be As Addictive As Heroin and How It Should Be Treated
This is another fine essay by Valerie Tarico. Here's a quote with the link:
In the end, the issue of whether religion is addictive for you comes down to similar questions to the ones you might ask yourself about your drug use: Has your religion eaten your life? Does it feel freely chosen or compulsive (and how would you know)? What are the good things about it? And what price are you or others around you paying for the good stuff you get? LINK.
Robert Conner, Christianity’s Critics: The Romans Meet Jesus, Part 3
Robert Conner studied Greek, Hebrew, some Aramaic and even Coptic back in the mid-70's at Western Kentucky University. He's written nine books, including Jesus the Sorcerer, The Secret Gospel of Mark and Magic in Christianity, as well as a number of articles and essays. If you want a primer on what the earliest critics of Christianity had to say about this new cult then I'm publishing an essay he wrote in several parts, with approval. This is Part 3. To get up to speed Part 1 can be found here.
Christianity’s Critics:
The Romans Meet Jesus
Extended and Revised, 04/2016
Robert Conner
PART THREE
Christianity is a Jewish heresy.
The Jesus of primitive tradition cares not a whit for Gentiles—“Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go instead to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news: the kingdom of heaven is almost here.”[1] “Jesus traveled through the small, often anonymous towns of Galilee, seemingly avoiding the major cities. Citizens of Sepphoris, Tiberius, the coastal plain and the Decapolis heard none of his sermons. When Jesus did enter the territory of cities in the Decapolis, he remained outside the walls (Mk 5:1; 7:31; 8:27).”[2] “Jesus’ preaching reflects the village”[3]—Jesus’ parables accordingly speak of sowers and fields,[4] shepherds and flocks,[5] and birds and flowers.[6] Before his fateful trip to Jerusalem, it ap-pears Jesus had little to do with any major city.
Donald Trump Is Coming to My Home Town On Sunday May 1st
He'll be at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum at 4:00 P.M. Doors open at 12:30 P.M. Yes I'm going. Any questions? ;-) LINK. Several of us are talking about protesting outside. What kinds of signs should we make? I also plan on going inside to see the circus!
Bernie Sanders Is Coming To My Home Town On Monday May 2nd
It's official. Bernie Sanders is coming to Fort Wayne! This Monday! May 2nd. At the IPFW Gates Sports Center. Doors open at 11am. He speaks at 2:30 PM. I'm super pumped. If you can make it then come. Take off work if you can. This is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate, and Indiana counts this year so it's doubly exciting! It's called A Future to Believe In GOTV Rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana on 5/2.
Mark Twain: The Character of God As Represented in the Old and New Testaments
Mark Twain: The Character of God as Represented in the Old and New Testaments, Dictated June, 19, 1906. Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume II, page 128:
Our bible reveals to us the character of our God with minute and remorseless exactitude. The portrait is substantially that of a man -- if one can imagine a man charged and overcharged with evil impulses far beyond the human limit; a personage whom no one would desire to associate with, now that Nero and Caligula are dead.
In the Old Testament His acts expose His vindictive, unjust, ungenerous, pitiless, and thousand-fold severity; punishing innocent children for the misdeeds of their parents; punishing unoffending populations for the misdeeds of their rulers; even descending to wreak bloody vengeance upon harmless calves and lambs and sheep and bullocks, as punishment for inconsequential trespasses committed by their proprietors.
It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere; it makes Nero an angel of light and leading, by contrast.
On the Value of the Philosophy of Religion Compared to Science
My next anthology, Christianity in the Light of Science: Critically Examining the World's Largest Religion, is on schedule to be out late in July as announced. I've tried to make each one of my anthologies as good or better than the one before. Many readers will think this is the best one yet.
If you look at the contributors who wrote the chapters you'll see something interesting. Here are the disciplines represented: 1 psychology, 1 engineer, 1 physicist, 1 theoretical physicist, 1 physics, 2 archaeology, 2 biblical scholar, 1 paranormal detective, 1 biology, 1 geology, 1 astronomy, 1 cognitive science, 2 anthropology, and 1 zoology. There is just one author who has a masters degree in philosophy, Johnathan Pearce, and he is scientifically informed. Seems as though we don't need philosophy of religion to debunk Christianity. Just science along with biblical scholars. Don't think so? Read the blurbs for now! For anyone claiming the authors are actually doing philosophy of religion just because we're reasoning about the evidence, think again. On this issue see my post Professor Keith Parsons On Darwin the Philosopher.
If you look at the contributors who wrote the chapters you'll see something interesting. Here are the disciplines represented: 1 psychology, 1 engineer, 1 physicist, 1 theoretical physicist, 1 physics, 2 archaeology, 2 biblical scholar, 1 paranormal detective, 1 biology, 1 geology, 1 astronomy, 1 cognitive science, 2 anthropology, and 1 zoology. There is just one author who has a masters degree in philosophy, Johnathan Pearce, and he is scientifically informed. Seems as though we don't need philosophy of religion to debunk Christianity. Just science along with biblical scholars. Don't think so? Read the blurbs for now! For anyone claiming the authors are actually doing philosophy of religion just because we're reasoning about the evidence, think again. On this issue see my post Professor Keith Parsons On Darwin the Philosopher.
The Philosophical Elitism of Keith Parsons
I'm going to try showing Keith Parsons that he stands a lot to gain by listening to me, that I know what I'm talking about, and that he's wrong about the New Atheism. While I probably won't convince him, keep in mind that an argument doesn't need to be convincing for it to be a good one. I'm going to argue his problem is philosophical elitism. I will do so respectably, although it's that same attitude that may keep him from responding. First, here's a quote from Eric MacDonald endorsing Parsons:
My specialties are theology, philosophical theology and especially apologetics. I am an expert on these subjects even though it's very hard to have a good grasp of them all. Now it's one thing for theologically unsophisticated intellectuals like Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Stenger to argue against religion. It's quite another thing for a theologically sophisticated intellectual like myself to say the "New Atheists" were within their epistemic rights to denounce religion from their perspectives. And I do. I can admit they lack the sophistication to understand and respond point for point to sophisticated theology. But it doesn't matter. The reason is because all sophisticated theology is based in faith: faith in the Bible (or Koran) as the word of God, and/or faith in the Nicene creed (or other creeds), and/or faith in a church, synagogue or temple. No amount of sophistication changes this. Even an informed ten year old can come to the correct conclusions about faith without any sophistication at all.
Let's take a serious look at what Parsons said:
The problem is precisely that the New Atheists think it appropriate to dismiss theology and philosophy of religion without understanding the first thing about it. Some New Atheists say, "I know enough about it. I was brought up as a Catholic or an Anglican or ...." But that's not qualification enough. Arguing from this point of view, where you really do not know what your opponent is arguing, because you have made no attempt to find out, is a simple informal fallacy known as special pleading. And the New Atheism is full of it. That's where Keith Parsons is way ahead of the New Atheists. Be an unbeliever by all means. But don't say that you know that there is no God or that theology is all make believe until you have really tried to understand what theologians are saying. And when you have done so, you will, I think, qualify your dismissal. --Eric MacDonaldI think this criticism of the New Atheism fails to understand the very phenomena being criticized. Let's just re-purpose MacDonald's quote: "The problem is precisely that the New Atheists think it appropriate to dismiss Scientology, or Mormonism, or militant Islam, or Hindu theology, or Haitian Catholic voodoo without understanding the first thing about it..." Need I go on? If anyone is special pleading it is MacDonald, for it didn't enter his mind to consider the many other religious faiths out there he easily dismisses without knowing that much about them. So I think reasonable people don't have to know a lot about religious faiths to reject them. We can dismiss these and other faiths precisely because they are faiths. The evidence is not there and even runs contrary to them. The moralities of these faiths also count against them. Do we need to know something about them to dismiss them? Sure, we should know something about them. In fact, to reject one of them we should at least hear about it. But even a rudimentary level of knowledge is enough for that, since faith is the problem. As outsiders we don't need to look into the many varieties of faith to know the results of faith are not likely to be true. We can do this simply by generalizing from the many mutually inconsistent false faiths to the probability that any given particular faith is false, even before getting an in-depth knowledge about it.
My specialties are theology, philosophical theology and especially apologetics. I am an expert on these subjects even though it's very hard to have a good grasp of them all. Now it's one thing for theologically unsophisticated intellectuals like Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Stenger to argue against religion. It's quite another thing for a theologically sophisticated intellectual like myself to say the "New Atheists" were within their epistemic rights to denounce religion from their perspectives. And I do. I can admit they lack the sophistication to understand and respond point for point to sophisticated theology. But it doesn't matter. The reason is because all sophisticated theology is based in faith: faith in the Bible (or Koran) as the word of God, and/or faith in the Nicene creed (or other creeds), and/or faith in a church, synagogue or temple. No amount of sophistication changes this. Even an informed ten year old can come to the correct conclusions about faith without any sophistication at all.
Let's take a serious look at what Parsons said:
Do you need a Ph.D. in philosophy to be a legitimate and respectable participant in the theism/atheism debate or the science/religion debate? Of course not. But you do need to know what you are talking about. Those, however accomplished in other fields, who leap into the debate philosophically uninformed inevitably commit freshman mistakes that expose them to the scorn of sophisticated opponents. LINK.
The Philosophy of Religion Must End Because Faith-Based Reasoning Must End
Philosophy of religion must end. If the philosophy of religion is using reason to examine the the claims of religion, and if religion is based on faith, then philosophy of religion must end. For faith has no justification nor merit. A reasonable faith does not exist, nor can faith be a guide for reasoning to any objective conclusion.
Religion is indeed based on faith in supernatural forces and/or entities. Faith is indeed an unreliable way to gain objective knowledge about the world. And faith-based reasoning cannot justify any claim concerning matters of fact like the nature of nature and its workings. So philosophy of religion is reasoning about that which is unreasonable. It takes the utterly unwarranted conclusions of faith seriously. To reason about religion requires granting more than a philosopher worthy of the name should do, since the very first principle of religion is faith. There are some things philosophers should not take seriously and still remain as intellectuals. A faith-based claim is one of them. There are other ways to deal with those types of claims. The proper discipline to determine if a claim is faith-based or not is to be found in the sciences.
Religion is indeed based on faith in supernatural forces and/or entities. Faith is indeed an unreliable way to gain objective knowledge about the world. And faith-based reasoning cannot justify any claim concerning matters of fact like the nature of nature and its workings. So philosophy of religion is reasoning about that which is unreasonable. It takes the utterly unwarranted conclusions of faith seriously. To reason about religion requires granting more than a philosopher worthy of the name should do, since the very first principle of religion is faith. There are some things philosophers should not take seriously and still remain as intellectuals. A faith-based claim is one of them. There are other ways to deal with those types of claims. The proper discipline to determine if a claim is faith-based or not is to be found in the sciences.
A Contested Democratic Convention Is Now a Near Statistical Certainty, and Here's Why Bernie Sanders Will Win It
LINK.
The Philosophy of Religion Must End Because Religions Self-Destruct
There isn't a tenet of any religion that isn't opposed with cogent arguments by adherents of different religions. Even within any given religion there are sects that oppose some important tenets of their mother religion. See here, and here for examples.
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