Quote of the Day On Emulating god, By Doubting Thomas
If reality is a good indication of god's nature and, being good, we would like to emulate god's nature:
-God does nothing as people starve to death, therefore we shouldn't be charitable.
-God does nothing as people die of diseases, therefore we should get rid of medicine.
-God does nothing as crimes are committed, therefore we should abolish the police.
-God does nothing as houses burn, therefore we should abolish the fire department.
If god's nature is something we should strive to copy, it seems apathy is our best bet.
-God does nothing as people starve to death, therefore we shouldn't be charitable.
-God does nothing as people die of diseases, therefore we should get rid of medicine.
-God does nothing as crimes are committed, therefore we should abolish the police.
-God does nothing as houses burn, therefore we should abolish the fire department.
If god's nature is something we should strive to copy, it seems apathy is our best bet.
Is Everything Permitted? Atheism vs. the Divine Command Theory
It’s a common claim that if God does not exist, then everything is permitted. In particular, those who accept some form of the Divine Command Theory (DCT) tend to say this. It’s not true, of course — but given what their theory implies, it is rather ironic that proponents of DCT claim such a thing.
Is Atheism a Religion Which Has No Evidence For it?
Q & A from Loftus the magnificent. ;-) [Once again, why not?]
Q. My Christian faith will never succumb to the religion of atheism. Why can't you see there is just no evidence for it?
A. Your big mistake is in thinking the alternative to your sect-specific Christian faith is atheism, and that atheism is just as religious as your faith. This is most emphatically not the case. Atheists do not believe in supernatural beings or forces, so it's a denial of religion. If one can be religious yet deny the supernatural, the word "religious" loses any significant meaning. To say atheism is a religion is to assert by fiat, without evidence, that everyone is religious regardless of what they claim. We might as well return the favor and say everyone is an atheist, if that's the language game you wish to play.
More to the point, there are many alternatives to your faith, such as other Christianities, other non-Christian religious faiths, and the many other tribal religious faiths in different geographical locations.
That there are so many diverse religious faiths held by intelligent, and educated people, who cannot convince other religious people, leads some of us to back out of the whole religious scene by doubting them all. We are called atheists. We merely try to convince religious believers they should doubt religion as a whole like we've done, precisely because we've learned religion itself is a cultural by-product of an ancient primitive era that lingers on in our own era.
Q. My Christian faith will never succumb to the religion of atheism. Why can't you see there is just no evidence for it?
A. Your big mistake is in thinking the alternative to your sect-specific Christian faith is atheism, and that atheism is just as religious as your faith. This is most emphatically not the case. Atheists do not believe in supernatural beings or forces, so it's a denial of religion. If one can be religious yet deny the supernatural, the word "religious" loses any significant meaning. To say atheism is a religion is to assert by fiat, without evidence, that everyone is religious regardless of what they claim. We might as well return the favor and say everyone is an atheist, if that's the language game you wish to play.
More to the point, there are many alternatives to your faith, such as other Christianities, other non-Christian religious faiths, and the many other tribal religious faiths in different geographical locations.
That there are so many diverse religious faiths held by intelligent, and educated people, who cannot convince other religious people, leads some of us to back out of the whole religious scene by doubting them all. We are called atheists. We merely try to convince religious believers they should doubt religion as a whole like we've done, precisely because we've learned religion itself is a cultural by-product of an ancient primitive era that lingers on in our own era.
What About the Origins Of Suffering?
Q & A from Loftus the magnificent. ;-)
Q. Why don't you discuss the origins of suffering in the world that created situations like we saw with the Las Vegas massacre?
A. I do indeed do that. But as a caring parent would you ever seek to justify why your children were hurt because of someone else's actions? I very much doubt you would seek to do this, ever.
Q. Why don't you discuss the origins of suffering in the world that created situations like we saw with the Las Vegas massacre?
A. I do indeed do that. But as a caring parent would you ever seek to justify why your children were hurt because of someone else's actions? I very much doubt you would seek to do this, ever.
How Do I Know God Doesn't Intervene to Save Lives Every Day?
Q & A from Loftus the magnificent. ;-)
Q. Just because my god finds a reason not to intervene to save lives doesn't mean he doesn't do so. How do you know my god does not intervene to save lives every day? Yet when he chooses not to intervene, why do you blame him?
A. Has your god prevented any tragedies? One would reasonably suspect that if a perfectly caring all-powerful god exists, who wants reasonable belief unto salvation, s/he would prevent the most horrific tragedies from occurring. Since so many horrible tragedies occur every hour, including the horrible kill-or-be-killed law of predation in the natural world, you have no basis for saying your god prevented anything from happening. Yours is a faith statement meant to deflect the fact that you will say anything to continue believing.
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For more on the problem of suffering see my book How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist. I devote one third of it to the problem of suffering, where I destroy any attempt Christian apologists use to deflect this problem. Don't just take my word for it, see the blurbs written about it by two important believing scholars:
Q. Just because my god finds a reason not to intervene to save lives doesn't mean he doesn't do so. How do you know my god does not intervene to save lives every day? Yet when he chooses not to intervene, why do you blame him?
A. Has your god prevented any tragedies? One would reasonably suspect that if a perfectly caring all-powerful god exists, who wants reasonable belief unto salvation, s/he would prevent the most horrific tragedies from occurring. Since so many horrible tragedies occur every hour, including the horrible kill-or-be-killed law of predation in the natural world, you have no basis for saying your god prevented anything from happening. Yours is a faith statement meant to deflect the fact that you will say anything to continue believing.
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For more on the problem of suffering see my book How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist. I devote one third of it to the problem of suffering, where I destroy any attempt Christian apologists use to deflect this problem. Don't just take my word for it, see the blurbs written about it by two important believing scholars:
Atheists Are More Likely Than Theists To Consider the Evidence for Miracles
Q & A from Loftus the magnificent. ;-)
Q. You say theism doesn't raise the probability that Jesus was raised from the dead. Why not? At least with theism believers hold to a miracle working god even if they disagree over which god exists.
A. Every atheist I know of, or have heard from, says they are open to the evidence that a miracle took place. In fact, I think atheists are more willing to consider the evidence of a miracle than theists who reject a different theist's miracle claim. Let's take the resurrection as our example. I'm not that open to the evidence because I've spent a lifetime looking for it and finding none exists (that is, nothing that counts as objective evidence). But I'm more open to it than Muslims and Jews. The reason is because of what faith does to the minds of believers. Faith deludes them into believing their faith is certain. Being certain their faith is correct, they are less likely to consider any evidence that Jesus arose from the dead, whereas atheists are at least willing to consider it (some more than others, of course).
Q. You say theism doesn't raise the probability that Jesus was raised from the dead. Why not? At least with theism believers hold to a miracle working god even if they disagree over which god exists.
A. Every atheist I know of, or have heard from, says they are open to the evidence that a miracle took place. In fact, I think atheists are more willing to consider the evidence of a miracle than theists who reject a different theist's miracle claim. Let's take the resurrection as our example. I'm not that open to the evidence because I've spent a lifetime looking for it and finding none exists (that is, nothing that counts as objective evidence). But I'm more open to it than Muslims and Jews. The reason is because of what faith does to the minds of believers. Faith deludes them into believing their faith is certain. Being certain their faith is correct, they are less likely to consider any evidence that Jesus arose from the dead, whereas atheists are at least willing to consider it (some more than others, of course).
Dodging Bullets from the Guns of the Las Vegas Massacre Shooter
My heart goes out to the victims and families of the Las Vegas massacre, those who were not able to dodge the shooter's bullets, and those traumatized by the thought it could have been them. My younger brother lives in Vegas and his favorite musician is Jason Aldean. He didn't go to the concert. *Whew* It was good news to learn he dodged that bullet! No, I do not think god saved him. No, I do not think his life has some special purpose because he didn't go. Sometimes shit happens. Sometimes good happens.
But what would have been so wrong for a good all-powerful god to end the shooter's life with a heart attack just before shooting his first bullet? Then everyone would have dodged their bullets. This, my friends, is the problem of suffering that most believers are blithely unaware and unconcerned about.
Believers are now praying for the families of the victims and others affected. But if their god did nothing to help anyone beforehand it makes no sense to think their god will help them afterward! That's what deluded people do because of the need to believe against all evidence to the contrary. If it's possible for them to ever see that faith causes them to ignore objective evidence to the contrary, this is their best chance.
But what would have been so wrong for a good all-powerful god to end the shooter's life with a heart attack just before shooting his first bullet? Then everyone would have dodged their bullets. This, my friends, is the problem of suffering that most believers are blithely unaware and unconcerned about.
Believers are now praying for the families of the victims and others affected. But if their god did nothing to help anyone beforehand it makes no sense to think their god will help them afterward! That's what deluded people do because of the need to believe against all evidence to the contrary. If it's possible for them to ever see that faith causes them to ignore objective evidence to the contrary, this is their best chance.
Science, Feelings, Evidence, Oh My!
To be open-minded means being open to any objective evidence that could change your mind. Being open-minded means being open to the consensus of scientists who agree evolution is a fact, along with all that it implies. Being open-minded means thinking like a scientist, by seeking to disconfirm your feelings and intuitions by objective evidence to the contrary.
I cannot agree to disagree if it means allowing feelings and intuitions to determine what we think is true. They are notoriously wrong, yet they deceive nearly every person on the planet.
To anyone who disagrees I have a feeling you are dead wrong. Try to dispute my feeling without using any objective evidence. Then you will see how utterly unreliable subjective feelings can be when it comes to knowing anything objective about the universe we live in, how it operates, and where it came from. You'll clearly see that subjective feelings and intuitions immunize the brain from knowing the truth about the universe we live in.
Believers will ask, "Is objective evidence the grand arbiter of truth? Do you you have any objective evidence to support this claim or is it just a feeling??" The answer is simple and easy. There is overwhelming objective evidence that requiring objective evidence is the best and probably only way to know anything about the nature of nature, its workings and origins.
I cannot agree to disagree if it means allowing feelings and intuitions to determine what we think is true. They are notoriously wrong, yet they deceive nearly every person on the planet.
To anyone who disagrees I have a feeling you are dead wrong. Try to dispute my feeling without using any objective evidence. Then you will see how utterly unreliable subjective feelings can be when it comes to knowing anything objective about the universe we live in, how it operates, and where it came from. You'll clearly see that subjective feelings and intuitions immunize the brain from knowing the truth about the universe we live in.
Believers will ask, "Is objective evidence the grand arbiter of truth? Do you you have any objective evidence to support this claim or is it just a feeling??" The answer is simple and easy. There is overwhelming objective evidence that requiring objective evidence is the best and probably only way to know anything about the nature of nature, its workings and origins.
When I say believers cannot be reasoned with, this is what I mean!
I get the kinds of comments you will read below, every single day. Note how easily it is for me to point out the delusion, and how easily sound logic based on solid evidence is dismissed by the believer. Truly a sight to behold!
Christian believers who say these stupidities outnumber by far, into the millions, Christian intellectuals who are more sophisticated due to being more obfuscationist. They claim I should deal with how THEY reason, rather than rank and file believers. I indeed do that, but this is how THEY would reason without the obfuscationism. Christian intellectuals--that is, Christian obfucationists--do exactly what Orthodox Jewish obfucationists and Muslim obfucationists do. They obfuscate to make what they believe more palatable. But deep down, the real reasons they believe can be seen by paying attention to what rank and file believers say, for after all, they were once part of the rank and file, that is, before they learned how to twist logic on behalf of faith.
Christian believers who say these stupidities outnumber by far, into the millions, Christian intellectuals who are more sophisticated due to being more obfuscationist. They claim I should deal with how THEY reason, rather than rank and file believers. I indeed do that, but this is how THEY would reason without the obfuscationism. Christian intellectuals--that is, Christian obfucationists--do exactly what Orthodox Jewish obfucationists and Muslim obfucationists do. They obfuscate to make what they believe more palatable. But deep down, the real reasons they believe can be seen by paying attention to what rank and file believers say, for after all, they were once part of the rank and file, that is, before they learned how to twist logic on behalf of faith.
Quote of the Day by Chuck Johnson
"God only exists as a fictional character. He is a dummy, and religionists put words into his mouth. Therefore, it is easy to show that God created evolution or anything else. All you have to do is say so and it magically becomes true."
Theism and the Odds Jesus was Raised From the Dead
Theism does not increase the odds that Jesus was raised from the dead, since one can be a theist and still think the evidence is insufficient to believe. Jews and Muslims reject the resurrection hypothesis just as surely as atheists and agnostics do.
“In God We Trust” Is Hot Air…and It Got Us Into this Mess
The advance of the anti-science, anti-democracy barbarians
But in my coursework I discovered that theology was longwinded on what God was like, but short of breath on epistemology: where can we find reliable, verifiable data about God? Well, that was asking too much: “We rely on prayer, revelation, intuition, the holy spirit speaking to us.” Really? You expect to get away with that forever?
Roy Moore
Roy Moore, the controversial former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, famous for his refusal to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building, is now a nominee for the U.S. Senate. In case some here aren’t all that familiar with him, here are some of his views:
It's Presuppositionalism All the Way Down!
How do believers know there's a god? Because of supposed miracles. Yet miracles are impossible in the natural world without a supernatural god (i.e., a natural explanation is required when there is no god). Therefore believers have to presuppose god to verify miracles. Presupposing a god to justify unverifiable miracles--which in turn provides the reason for believing in god--is what we mean by the delusion of faith (i.e., pretending to know things you don't know). Apologists can try to claim they're not presuppositionalists all they want, but they are preuppositionalists nonetheless.
Dr. Richard C. Miller On Fantasy, Bayes and the Impossibility of Miracles
Dr. Miller recently began blogging at Hume's Bible, an important resource for the rest of us. In his most recent post he writes On the Impossibility of Miracles. This is something I've been addressing.
Miller starts by saying, "We measure human rational sanity by one’s consistent success in distinguishing clearly between fantasy and reality" and then gives an example with regard to alleged miracle claims. "Miracles, by very definition, are natural, rational impossibilities." "For, if a claim had empirical support, would we not classify such a proposal as indeed natural, not supernatural?" So he goes on to say, following Hume,
Miller starts by saying, "We measure human rational sanity by one’s consistent success in distinguishing clearly between fantasy and reality" and then gives an example with regard to alleged miracle claims. "Miracles, by very definition, are natural, rational impossibilities." "For, if a claim had empirical support, would we not classify such a proposal as indeed natural, not supernatural?" So he goes on to say, following Hume,
Here we may choose to end the argument, claiming a quite reasonable conclusive victory. Miracles, by very definition, are natural, rational impossibilities. When someone claims a miracle has occurred, we respond by saying that “there must be some rational explanation.” By doing this, we are implicitly recognizing as a society that miraculous claims are essentially irrational, i.e., a miraculous proposition contains one or more a priori contradictions with regard to its constituent terms (Italics mine).This last phrase of his is very interesting. If we wish to assign a non-zero mathematical prior probability to a miracle claim, we cannot do it. For doing so means assigning a mathematical probability to something that is contradictory. Reading his explanation is worth the price of a click and a share.
The Nasty, Get-Even God of the New Testament
A few items that the cherry-pickers don't pick
Here's How To Bring Science Down To Philosophy
Here's yet another attempt to bring science down to the level of controversial philosophical opinions. I call bullshit! The money quote:
I think it is helpful for students to realize that there is a lot more agreement and objectivity in philosophy, and a lot more controversy and subjectivity in science, than they think. This is perhaps the most obnoxious misconception that I routinely encounter… The problem is that in all of their prior classes in science, students encounter the settled truth of science. LINK.
Empirical Proof that Christianity Is False?
Split-brain patients are individuals who have had the corpus callosum (which connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain) severed. This causes the individual to have two centers of both perceptual and motor activity. Each side of the brain may give a different answer to the same question.
In the video clip below, neurologist V. S. Ramachandran discusses a split-brain individual whose right hemisphere believed in God and whose left hemisphere did not.
Where the Bible Gets it Really Wrong
The batshit crazy theology of the apostle Paul: four texts
Apologists do indeed rise to the occasion. They have a broad menu of absurdities to choose from, but their ultimate challenge must be the writing of the apostle Paul.
Of course, Paul has a lot going for him: the high drama of his Damascus Road conversion (we find three versions of this episode in the Book of Acts—but Paul never mentions it in his letters); nothing could hold him back from preaching the gospel: “Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits…” (II Corinthians 11:24-26)
And of course, he got to be a “saint”—which tarnishes that coin considerably.
Quote of the Day by Phasespace
What I reject are the claims made by the people who claim to speak for God. I reject the notion that you know what you are talking about. I reject the notion that you or anyone else has any sort of connection to such a being. I reject the notion that the existence of a god of some kind is self-evident. This is a far cry from rejecting the actual being, if it exists. The evidence suggests and is much more parsimonious with the conclusion that religion is an attempt to understand the world and our place in it, before we understood how to understand. Or at least before discovering more reliable methods for attempting to do so.
Vincent Torley is Our Deluded Anti-Intellectual Person of the Day
Vince is smarter than your average bear, I'll admit, and respectful. But he's no less deluded than the others. I think he was gunning for this award so I'll grant it to him. Congratulations Vince, or something. ;-)
I wish I had a dollar every time a Christian said God acts like a wise parent to his children. In a futile attempt to alleviate the problem of suffering, Christians almost always say God allows us to suffer, sometimes intensely, to teach us to trust him, or to love deeper, or to strengthen our moral character, or to discipline us for our sins, or even to complete the sufferings of Christ, whatever that could possibly mean (Colossians 1:24), and so on.
Torley rejects the parental analogy since he rejected Dr. Abby Hafer's response to the question, "Why is God obligated to help someone who rejects Him?"
Hafer had used the parental analogy in answer to the question, saying,
I wish I had a dollar every time a Christian said God acts like a wise parent to his children. In a futile attempt to alleviate the problem of suffering, Christians almost always say God allows us to suffer, sometimes intensely, to teach us to trust him, or to love deeper, or to strengthen our moral character, or to discipline us for our sins, or even to complete the sufferings of Christ, whatever that could possibly mean (Colossians 1:24), and so on.
Torley rejects the parental analogy since he rejected Dr. Abby Hafer's response to the question, "Why is God obligated to help someone who rejects Him?"
Hafer had used the parental analogy in answer to the question, saying,
The same reason a parent is obliged to help her children, even when they reject her. Parents bring their children into the world. According to this person's world view, God brought humans (and animals, and plants) into the world. Human parents have this very obligation toward their children--to keep helping them, even when they reject you. And by and large, parents do this. So--is God actually *less* moral, dutiful, strong and self-controlled than your average mother? LINK. Dr. Hafer is the author of the incredibly good book, The Not-So-Intelligent Designer.]"I don't buy the argument, because the analogy is a flawed one," says Torley. Well, now, if this doesn't prove there are too many ways to play the game called Christian apologist, I don't know of them. Whatever the problem is, answer it by saying whatever needs to be said to save one's faith from refutation.
EVANGELICAL BAD FAITH VI:
TORTURED TEXTS
Robert Conner
No one knows for sure what the hell the gospels mean and no one ever has. That, I believe, is the only logical conclusion a completely disinterested reader of the gospels could reach now or could have reached nineteen centuries ago. In point of fact, Christians were in disagreement about what even constituted a real gospel for at least the first two centuries after the death of Jesus. Of the twenty or so gospels—and possible versions of the current four—that are known or suspected to have been knocking around in Christianity’s infancy, only the Big Four were finally declared “canonical” and those four are in substantial disagreement at various seemingly crucial points. If, as evangelicals are wont to claim, the Holy Spirit used human authors to pen a record for the ages on which belief could be firmly based, then the Holy Spirit made a right shit job of it.
Five Major Signs Your Brain is Made Stupid By Faith
This Is Your Brain on Drugs was a large-scale US anti-narcotics campaign by Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) launched in 1987, that used two televised public service announcements (PSAs) and a related poster campaign. Here's the original 30 second commercial:
I want people to consider the drug metaphor for faith, taking our cue from Karl Marx who described religious faith as the opiate of the people, as I argued previously. When you watch the commercial hear him say "This is your brain on faith." That's what I think. Here then are five major signs your brain is made stupid by faith:
1) When faith makes you denigrate or deny science.
2) When faith makes you think you don't need evidence to believe. (Just think Alvin Plantinga).
3) When faith makes you deny the need to think exclusively in terms of the objective probabilities.
4) When faith makes you deny the need for sufficient objective evidence in favor of private subjective experiences.
5) When faith makes you think it has an equal or better method at arriving at the truth than scientifically based reasoning. Any questions?
I want people to consider the drug metaphor for faith, taking our cue from Karl Marx who described religious faith as the opiate of the people, as I argued previously. When you watch the commercial hear him say "This is your brain on faith." That's what I think. Here then are five major signs your brain is made stupid by faith:
1) When faith makes you denigrate or deny science.
2) When faith makes you think you don't need evidence to believe. (Just think Alvin Plantinga).
3) When faith makes you deny the need to think exclusively in terms of the objective probabilities.
4) When faith makes you deny the need for sufficient objective evidence in favor of private subjective experiences.
5) When faith makes you think it has an equal or better method at arriving at the truth than scientifically based reasoning. Any questions?
Smart People Saying Stupid Things
Loftus’s observation that faith makes smart people say stupid things reminded me of two instances I’d previously come across. The first involves Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project and the author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. As some here may already know, Collins, a geneticist and defender of evolutionary theory, “knelt in the dewy grass… and surrendered to Jesus Christ” as a result of seeing “a beautiful and unexpected frozen waterfall” while hiking in the Cascade Mountains. That he considers a purely emotional reaction like that as a reason for accepting the claims of Christianity shows just how unscientific a scientist can be. (How would he respond to someone who denied evolution based on nothing more than emotion?)
How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth
I once taught a hermeneutics class for a Christian college using a book titled "How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth." In a comment to a friend recently, I wish I would have taught them to do this:
Here's how you should read the Bible. You need to read it as if you're listening in on a phone conversation where you cannot hear the person on the other end. You know they're saying something, so you have to reconstruct it from listening to the person you can hear.
Think of it this way. In all my days debating the Bible no one wins any debate with just a comment or two. Yet this is what we repeatedly see in the gospels in the case of Jesus. He always wins all of his debates with just a comment or two. In a few cases we read where his opponents walk off grumbling, so they were obviously not convinced. From this we know the gospels don't tell us the whole story. What is their story? We must reconstruct it. What would they have said in response? I think in many, if not most cases, I know. The same goes for all of the epistles, including Paul's authentic ones. When Paul argues against others who claim to be Christians you can bet they had their responses. What were they? In many cases I think I know. Can you do this? Have you ever tried? You realize these were smart people who had intelligent answers, right?
Look at the OT in the same way when it my comes to the prophets who denounced people. You realize there were other prophets who said different things and who denounced each other, don't you? How would people living in those times know which ones to believe? It would be very difficult for them. How do you know that the prophets who eventually won out were the true prophets of the true god?
When it comes to the destruction of whole peoples and the slaughtering of their babies, what would these people say to such a holy war? Have you ever seen the need for a complete genocide? Do you know any people worthy of nothing but slaughter?
Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.
My main point is that it was not obvious to the people of that day which god is the "real" one. The "real" god or gods surfaced later as more people grew to believe in them (just as some religious groups are larger than others, the largest one being the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages) who were retrospectively written back into what you now read in the Bible.
Here's how you should read the Bible. You need to read it as if you're listening in on a phone conversation where you cannot hear the person on the other end. You know they're saying something, so you have to reconstruct it from listening to the person you can hear.
Think of it this way. In all my days debating the Bible no one wins any debate with just a comment or two. Yet this is what we repeatedly see in the gospels in the case of Jesus. He always wins all of his debates with just a comment or two. In a few cases we read where his opponents walk off grumbling, so they were obviously not convinced. From this we know the gospels don't tell us the whole story. What is their story? We must reconstruct it. What would they have said in response? I think in many, if not most cases, I know. The same goes for all of the epistles, including Paul's authentic ones. When Paul argues against others who claim to be Christians you can bet they had their responses. What were they? In many cases I think I know. Can you do this? Have you ever tried? You realize these were smart people who had intelligent answers, right?
Look at the OT in the same way when it my comes to the prophets who denounced people. You realize there were other prophets who said different things and who denounced each other, don't you? How would people living in those times know which ones to believe? It would be very difficult for them. How do you know that the prophets who eventually won out were the true prophets of the true god?
When it comes to the destruction of whole peoples and the slaughtering of their babies, what would these people say to such a holy war? Have you ever seen the need for a complete genocide? Do you know any people worthy of nothing but slaughter?
Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.
My main point is that it was not obvious to the people of that day which god is the "real" one. The "real" god or gods surfaced later as more people grew to believe in them (just as some religious groups are larger than others, the largest one being the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages) who were retrospectively written back into what you now read in the Bible.
EVANGELICAL BAD FAITH V:
FOLLOW THE MONEY
Robert Conner
Forget what they told you. You want the truth, follow the money. -- Roxanne Bland
I regard the sincerity of evangelical true believers in general as a truism and I doubt that many of their numerous critics would disagree. After all, why would anyone knowingly pour money into an empire of fraud? The question forced on me and (I suspect) many others is how to account for the one or two percent of evangelicals who should know better. Although the motivations of the evangelical horde are a constant topic of speculation among sociologists, political wonks, and psychologists, Levine raises a crucial question: “Who benefits from the study of the historical Jesus—to what end is the effort focused?” Helpfully, she also notes, “Politics and theology need not be mutually exclusive …”[I]
The Ten Well-Founded "Presuppositions" of Atheism
Robert Conner wrote something recently that prompted me to write this.
The Ten Well-Founded "Presuppositions" of Atheism:
1. We require sufficient objective empirical evidence before we will accept any claims of divine revelation.
2. We accept the general principle that any specific miraculous claim must overcome the strong presumption that it didn't occur based on the overwhelming cumulative evidence that miracles have not occurred.
3. We accept the view that believers must shoulder the burden of proof as outsiders to show their faith is objectively true, given that learning a religion as an uncritical child from one's parents in a religious culture is a notoriously unreliable way to know which religion is true, if there is one.
4. We accept the results of scientific clinical studies that have shown petitionary prayers work no better than chance, and reject personal antecdotal unconfirmed stories told by believers.
5. We accept that the laws of nature in the ancient pre-scientific world were the same as they are now, so we have a very strong presumption against accepting miraculous claims in the ancient superstitious world prior to the rise of modern science and the modern world.
6. We accept that which is objectively probable, and reject that which is merely possible.
7. We reject any and all double standards and special pleadings from religionists when they argue for their faith over the faiths of others.
8. We accept the overwhelming consensus of scientists as the surest guarantee of what is true, over any and all claims by religious leaders, scholars and their holy books.
9. We proportion what we conclude based on the strength of the objective evidence.
10. We accept the approach of methodological naturalism in assessing miraculous claims, whereby we seek out natural explanations for any and all events in question, given that doing so is the best and only way to know the truth in the midst of so many religious frauds, fakes, liars and hucksters.
The Ten Well-Founded "Presuppositions" of Atheism:
1. We require sufficient objective empirical evidence before we will accept any claims of divine revelation.
2. We accept the general principle that any specific miraculous claim must overcome the strong presumption that it didn't occur based on the overwhelming cumulative evidence that miracles have not occurred.
3. We accept the view that believers must shoulder the burden of proof as outsiders to show their faith is objectively true, given that learning a religion as an uncritical child from one's parents in a religious culture is a notoriously unreliable way to know which religion is true, if there is one.
4. We accept the results of scientific clinical studies that have shown petitionary prayers work no better than chance, and reject personal antecdotal unconfirmed stories told by believers.
5. We accept that the laws of nature in the ancient pre-scientific world were the same as they are now, so we have a very strong presumption against accepting miraculous claims in the ancient superstitious world prior to the rise of modern science and the modern world.
6. We accept that which is objectively probable, and reject that which is merely possible.
7. We reject any and all double standards and special pleadings from religionists when they argue for their faith over the faiths of others.
8. We accept the overwhelming consensus of scientists as the surest guarantee of what is true, over any and all claims by religious leaders, scholars and their holy books.
9. We proportion what we conclude based on the strength of the objective evidence.
10. We accept the approach of methodological naturalism in assessing miraculous claims, whereby we seek out natural explanations for any and all events in question, given that doing so is the best and only way to know the truth in the midst of so many religious frauds, fakes, liars and hucksters.
Don Camp is Our Gullible/Deluded/Anti-Intellectual Person of the Day!
Don Camp has been commenting here for a few months. He's on a mission to save readers from hell. He's the answer man, always doing what he can to show why we are wrong. But if there was ever a gullible/deluded/anti-intellectual person then he is it. The special pleading word salad he makes out of pure bullshit is bizarre to behold. I cannot stomach it. Since he really thinks he has reasonable answers to the questions posed of him, I want others to see what faith does to an otherwise intelligent mind. It makes people stupid. I've argued this in one of my top ten favorite chapters, chapter 3, "Christianity is Wildly Improbable", for my anthology The End of Christianity. Camp is another example of this phenomenon. He proclaims he has psychic abilities to hear "voices" from "the other side"! He doesn't even know that's what he's doing, but he is. I've written about this psychic connection in the writings of Alvin Plantinga, in another one of my top ten favorite chapters, chapter 5, "Accept Nothing Less Than Sufficient Objective Evidence", for my book How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice From an Atheist.
You must read this to see it for yourselves, below:
You must read this to see it for yourselves, below:
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