My Easter Epiphany
Dr. Jaco Gericke: "Christian philosophy of religion as nonsense on stilts"
Bible Blunders & Bad Theology, Part 10
Letting Satan have his way
Since this is Good Friday, we should pay homage to Matthew’s effort to merge Halloween with Easter. He reported that when Jesus died on the cross, many people came alive in their tombs, then on Easter morning walked around Jerusalem. (Matthew 27:52-53) Even many Christians dismiss this as a tall tale, but this is awkward: how can they argue that the resurrection of Jesus isn’t a tall tale as well?
Now, on with today’s topic.
How much time and energy have Christian apologists devoted to figuring out why God allows so much suffering? In fact, apologetics is quite an industry; there is so much incoherence in Christian theology that has to be dealt with, but especially suffering. I once found a stunning bit of information in a July 1993 article by Peter Steinfels in the religion section of the New York Times. He reported the amazing achievement of scholar Barry Whitney:
On Finding Jesus
I'm here today to announce my conversion to Christianity. For several years now, I've been blogging at Debunking Christianity, and before that at my own site, arguing against what up until recently I saw as irrational beliefs. But last night, God spoke to me, and I am now saved. Praise the Lord!
Do A Vast Majority of Naturalists Hold To Naturalism Dogmatically and Unreflectively?
GCRR Announces the 2021 International eConference on Religious Trauma!
Religious trauma results from an event, series of events, relationships, or circumstances within or connected to religious beliefs, practices, or structures that is experienced by an individual as overwhelming or disruptive and has lasting adverse effects on a person’s physical, mental, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.
The Persistence of Christian Crazy
“…it’s a problem for the rest of us…”
“Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” So said John the Baptist when he spotted Jesus heading toward him, according to the opening chapter of John’s gospel (v. 29). This gospel was written well after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E. The Temple had been a great slaughterhouse, doing big business in the ritual killing of animals to atone for sins. John’s theology represents an adjustment, an upgrade from animal to human sacrifice: Jesus is the one and only Lamb whose death is needed to cancel sin. This is ancient superstition, a dramatic example of magical thinking, promoted even today by a vast church bureaucracy.
Dr. David Madison, Debunker Par Excellence!
I'm a big fan of former Methodist minister and biblical scholar Dr. David Madison, who no longer believes. He understands how best to debunk Christianity. It has to do a great deal with the Bible. Since the Bible makes atheists out of readers--doing so will shock you to the bone--then how much more does reading what Madison says about the Bible. He honors us at DC by writing weekly essays on Friday, plus so much more, as he's also an administrator. He honored me by asking for a Foreword to his book three years ago, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief (2nd ed. 2018). With his permission, here it is:
The Paradoxes of Denying Infinity
It consists of two parts — the main blog post, plus (for those who want to delve a bit deeper into the issue) an addendum on the solution to Zeno's paradox:
Although it may be surprising, no claim I've made has been criticized more by the religious than the claim that there are actual infinities. Every time I so much as mention infinity, someone goes out of their way to "inform" me of the errors of my ways. And yet there appear to be clear cases of infinity all around us. For example, every time you move, you go through an infinite number of subintervals: You first go half of the way, then 3/4 of the way, followed by 7/8, 15/16, and so on, covering what is obviously an infinite series. Nevertheless, you are able to complete the motion.
Three Pillars of My Atheism
“We have in this century discovered our universe”
My focus in this article will not be suffering—colossal human and animal suffering—that is built into creation, and renders the concept of a caring, competent god incoherent and meaningless. There are three other realities that make Christian theology highly suspect, and contributed mightily to my rejection of the faith; that’s my focus here, but please be assured that the scale of suffering alone blasts Christianity out of the water. Nobody has said it better than Stephen Fry, when he was asked in an interview what he—an outspoken atheist—would say to God if the latter confronted him at the Pearly Gates:
“I’d say, bone cancer in children…what’s that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault. It's not right. It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain? That's what I would say.”
Labels: Scale of the Universe
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
In Defense of the New Atheists: An Excerpt From My Book "Unapologetic"
It's time for atheist philosophers of religion to end their own sub-discipline under Philosophy proper. I explain in detail what I mean in my book Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End (2016). Below is an excerpt from it where I defend the new atheists Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Stenger from the philosophical elites. A few months ago I defended Hitchens' Razor. You can see the same dismissive attitude in both of these essays. I have no personal axe to grind. It's a principled disagreement. You can comment but before I'll respond you should first read my book.
Labels: Real Atheology
The College/Seminary/University Transcripts of John W. Loftus
A Flare-up of Atheism in 1849
“No preachers at my funeral, please”
Not long after the dawn of this new century, a New Atheism was born—at least it’s been called that. The best selling books by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett stunned the Christian world: so much eloquent, outspoken criticism of theism. Perhaps the adjective “new” was meant to suggest that it was a fad, but these famous books spurred many other authors. By my count, well over four hundred books have now appeared since 2000, explaining in detail the falsification of theism, Christianity especially. These include, by the way, the five anthologies published by John Loftus—with two more in the works. In 2011, The Clergy Project was established, which is a support group for clergy who have become atheists. If there is no such thing as “new” atheism, there is a new level of energy and determination.
Andrew Loke on the Resurrection: A Skeptic's Review, by Eric Bess
Required Reading, Julia Galef's Book "The Scout Mindset"
All Things Are Possible . . . in Books, Films, and Campfire Tales
Bible Blunders & Bad Theology, Part 9
How did Mark find out about the Last Supper?
I sometimes indulge the frivolous thought that New Testament scholarship might have derived some of its inspiration from great mystery writers, e.g., Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), Agatha Christie (1890-1976), and Dorothy L. Sayers (1983-1957). These authors imagined complex plots and their sleuths, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Lord Peter Wimsey, applied considerable ingenuity to discover whodunit. New Testament scholars, who have thrived when these authors were in their prime—and beyond—face one of the biggest whodunits ever, actually a multi-layered whodunit: how did Christianity come to be, how are the New Testament documents related, and how in the world can we figure out who Jesus really was, if he really was? Scholars have yet to agree on a methodology for identifying genuine historical data in the gospels—and they continue sleuthing to unravel multiple mysteries.
The Fueling of Christian Hate
Arrogant and aggressive ignorance
When I gave up my ordination and left the ministry in 1977, I managed a successful transition to a business career. This was long before the existence of The Clergy Project, which today provides support for clergy who have become atheists and are trying to move on; I had to wing it reinventing myself. A couple of year before that I had also been divorced, after ten years of marriage. I had known since I was a teenager that I was gay, but in rural Indiana in the 1950s gay people did not exist. Well of course they did, but remained deeply closeted and out of sight. There were certainly no famous role models, such as Neil Patrick Harris, for example. Hence I had followed the script I was expected to follow—pretty perfectly too: I married a missionary’s daughter.
It's Hogwash To Say Deductive Arguments Produce Certain Conclusions While Inductive Arguments Are Weaker by Comparison!!
(1) Every SOUND deductive argument’s conclusion is impossible to be false. [A sound deductive argument would be one that has all true premises and a valid form/structure. A sound deductive argument/reasoning would produce a conclusion that is impossible to be false; such a sound deductive conclusion would be guaranteed true with 100% certainty.]As a former college instructor in logic and critical thinking who taught students who were police officers, detectives, and lawyers, allow me to teach you something useful. The only thing certain in a valid deductive argument is the logical structure of the argument itself. Many philosophy novices fail to get this point.
(2) Every cogent/strong non-deductive argument’s conclusion is possible to be false. [In contrast, a cogent/strong non-deductive or probabilistic argument at best produces only a conclusion that is only probably true; its conclusion is always possible to be false.]
Because of the above, when the conclusion of a non-deductive or probabilistic argument contradicts that of a sound deductive argument, the conclusion of the non-deductive argument would be guaranteed false with 100% certainty.
Given the above two points, because there exists sound deductive arguments that produced the conclusion that “the God of Classical Christian Theism exists extramentally” (which would be guaranteed to be true with 100% certainty given the nature of SOUND deductive arguments), any non-deductive argument (such as all those evidential probabilistic arguments making use of the existence of sufferings) that concludes with “the God of Classical Christian Theism probably does not exist extra-mentally” would be totally negated.
Remarkable Resistance to Rational Inquiry
Knowing God for sure can be a health risk
Quite a few of the most vocal Christians in the land—of the TV evangelist variety—assured their fans that God told them Trump would be reelected; how did they get it so wrong? Many other Christian leaders have gone right ahead with large church gatherings during the pandemic, confident that faith is sufficient protection against the virus; they were enough in tune with God to know this. But their meetings turned into super spreader events; did God’s word get garbled? How does it happen that super devout folks are so sure that God talks to them?
Conspiratorial Theories and Religious Beliefs
We just watched a Netflix Series called Crime Scene: The Vanishing at Cecil Hotel. It's four episodes long. It was riveting, having to do with the vanishing of hotel guest Elisa Lam. Lots of internet sleuths got involved when a video of her getting in and out of an elevator surfaced. All kinds of theories were proposed. One by one they were shown wrong by either the evidence, or the lack of evidence.
The sleuths slowly gravitated toward conspiracy theories as this happened. They thought coincidences were evidence, like the parallels with a movie called "Dark Waters". The fact is, coincidences are not equivalent to objective evidence, because if we look hard enough and long enough we will see plenty of them!
When the truth came out in the fourth episode we see the sleuths having a hard time accepting the truth, since they had so much invested in the case.
Don't research this case first, as it will spoil it. Watch this series first. Then think of Trump and those who continue believing his lie that his last election was stolen from him.
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PS Isn't it telling that since Dominion Voting Systems has sued people to the tune of billions of dollars that Trump has stopped calling the election a fraud?
What Does the Problem of Suffering Conclude?
John I’m so so confused why you believe that an argument against God using evil is very effective. At best it would only bring into question what kind of God.My response: Two things: 1) The argument from evil shows your SPECIFIC god doesn't exist. 2) The cavalier manner in which you respond like this reveals something very important, that you would believe in a different god if the argument succeeds, one that does evil, rather than give up your faith. That means above all, you value faith for faith's sake. Since this is quite clear, no argument can persuade you to abandon faith itself. You would simply continue moving the goal posts. Given this FACT a dialogue with you is a waste of my time. It is YOU who needs to get honest by fact checking your faith against the objective evidence. I have already done so.
Answering Two Objections Against Miracles
You already know one of my objections: you have no criteria for identifying what qualifies as "extraordinary evidence" for an extraordinary claim. If there is no criteria, that presents three problems. 1. your principle is subjective, 2. you have no basis for telling us our evidence is not extraordinary enough, and 3. we have no way of knowing whether our evidence would satisfy anyone who holds to this principle because they are unwilling to give us any guide for determining this. If you expect us to satisfy the requirement, you have to give us a way of measuring that aspect of the evidence.In answer this is what I call obfuscationist apologetics. The attempt is to get sidetracked into interesting issues that are beside the point. Rather than clarifying the issue to be addressed the goal is to distract us away from it, or to muddy the waters for the unwary.
First, this is not my problem. This is a problem for Bair's god. His god should know what would be convincing for rational people who cannot believe. The question then becomes why such a god who wants us to believe or be damned, is not providing it. Second, if I were to go further I would say it must be sufficient objective evidence. The reason why this is the case is because there's no objective evidence at all for any of the miracles that form the basis for Bair's Christian faith. Third, as to offering criteria goes I would offer clear-cut obvious concrete examples instead, like the unevidenced belief that a virgin gave birth to the second person of a Trinitarian god in an ancient pre-scientific superstitious age, best described as one of Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire. Then I would ask Bair to state his criteria for believing such an extraordinary claim, to see if included, was any objective evidence at all, which isn't. Hence I could simply dismiss his claim, which should be the end of it, per Hitchens' Razor.
The other objection I have is that your rejection for miracles does not rest on the principles endemic in the discipline of historiography. They rely on philosophical presuppositions rather than historiographical principles. That philosophical bias does not establish a basis for rejecting historical claims that don't conform to it. This forces the investigator to accept explanations for historical events even if they are false, and forces him to reject explanations even if they are true. Based on this, my contention is that you are simply defining historical methodologies out of existence in order to defeat them in a way you find convenient but not in a way that honestly addresses the merits of the evidence.Will someone please tell me why Bair accuses me of that which Bair is guilty of doing? Methinks he doth protest too much. This link of arguments should refute such an unfounded hypocrtical claim. Let me just quote one passage from that previous link, something Dr. Bart Ehrman said in his book, Jesus Interrupted, about the historian and miracles here:
Why was the tomb supposedly empty? I say supposedly because, frankly, I don't know that it was. Our very first reference to Jesus' tomb being empty is in the Gospel of Mark, written forty years later by someone living in a different country who had heard it was empty. How would he know?...Suppose...that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea...and then a couple of Jesus' followers, not among the twelve, decided that night to move the body somewhere more appropriate...But a couple of Roman legionnaires are passing by, and catch these followers carrying the shrouded corpse through the streets. They suspect foul play and confront the followers, who pull their swords as the disciples did in Gethsemane. The soldiers, expert in swordplay, kill them on the spot. They now have three bodies, and no idea where the first one came from. Not knowing what to do with them, they commandeer a cart and take the corpses out to Gehenna, outside town, and dump them. Within three or four days the bodies have deteriorated beyond recognition. Jesus' original tomb is empty, and no one seems to know why. Is this scenario likely? Not at all. Am I proposing this is what really happened? Absolutely not. Is it more probable that something like this happened than that a miracle happened and Jesus left the tomb to ascend to heaven? Absolutely! From a purely historical point of view, a highly unlikely event is far more probable than a virtually impossible one..." [See pages 171-179]
Labels: Case against Miracles, Phil Bair
Ravi Zacharias Was a Sexual Predator
I've known of Ravi since my graduation at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1985, when he was honored by being the commencement speaker. I remember being very impressed with him at the time. That was the day this photo was taken of me with my two mentors, Dr. Craig and Dr. Strauss.
The Curious Lack of Christian Curiosity
Bible skepticism is risky business
How is history written—real history? What is the labor required to give accurate accounts of events in the past? David McCullough’s The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris provides a good example. His 450 pages of text—describing the Paris sojourns of Mary Cassatt and Samuel Morse, among many others—are followed by 76 pages listing his sources: exactly where he found the information. McCullough spent a lot of time digging in libraries and archives.
Jesus and the Capitol Insurrection
We’re Still in Deep Trouble
“Jesus 2020” and “Jesus is my savior, Trump Is My President.” These were two of the big signs I saw during TV coverage of the Capitol insurrection. I wondered just how many of the insurrectionists thought of themselves as Christians. Many evangelical leaders have identified Trump as a godsend—literally. So maybe these were Christian soldiers, “…marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before. Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe; forward into battle, see His banners go!” Contemporary crusaders.
The “Atheist” Misnomer
Atheist. Let us problematize the term just for a moment, shall we? In classical Greek etymology, the alpha prefix denoted sheer negation, precisely equivalent to the Latin “non.” “Theos,” of course, meant “deity” or “god,” and the Greek suffix “-ismos” became applied in Latin and, as such, pulled up into early English, conveying “adherence toward” or “belief in.” So, an atheist is one who is not a theist, that is, one who does not hold a belief in the existence of any deity.
We often find in the false rhetoric of Christian apologists and of Christian pseudo-intellectuals the claim that atheism is itself a belief. I cannot count how many times and contexts I have come across this ridiculous claim, a claim akin to smokers alleging that non-smokers are also themselves smokers.. Ummm.. huh? No. By very fundamental definition, atheism entails no belief. Indeed, the term affirms nothing other than the negation. By comparison, in the phrase “The man is not a bingo player,” we affirm nothing about the man, except what he is not!
In early Christian rhetoric, as Christianity gained its place as the sole state-sanctioned religion of the Roman world, even if by force, those not yet converted came to be labelled the “pagans” (Lat. pagani, “the hicks, rednecks, or unsophisticated rural folk"). This derogatory label persists to this day in ancient history study for those who were not specifically part of the later hegemonic / dominant group, namely, the Christians. Thus, ironically, Cicero, Caesar, Sappho, Plato, Homer, Cleopatra, Zeno, and all of the host of other towering figures of classical antiquity shamefully obtain the epithet “pagan” in Western scholarship.
In like fashion, the appellation “atheist” stamped upon us has served as a rhetorical misnomer, the binary recessive determined by exclusion vis-a-vis the dominant group, to follow the parlance of Jacques Derrida. Where else do people play such a game with language? Atheism is a non-group, a namespace only by negation. We may as well call ourselves the adrogonists or the alephrechaunists, inasmuch as the very identity “atheist'' tacitly legitimates the patently ridiculous, as though a genuine rational debate exists between two opposing sides. To carry on with non-belief in fairies, leprechauns, ghouls, gods, angels, genies, or phantoms is merely to be reasonable, not to stake a position in any legitimate debate to be waged in society. The moon is not made of green cheese, and the dismissal of such a “Mother-Goose” characterization of reality does not earn one the tag “a-green-cheese-moonist,” but merely one who is “reasonable.” For, belief in mythology is and always has been a conscious, willful indulgence, not a compelling, evidence-driven conclusion; the latter we instead properly term “knowledge.” So, when it comes to the matter of deities, in a more honest world we “atheists” instead would be known merely as the reasonable (in the most literal sense of the term), that is, those compelled by a mental construction of reality determined rather exclusively by evidence and reason.