“You shine with radiant light, in this circle of earthly existence. You shine so finely, it surpasses understanding. God hugs you. You are encircled by the arms of the mystery of God.” St. Hildegard of Birgen, 1098-1179
“If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or feet and be thrown into the eternal fire.”
Jesus, Matthew 18:8
“Religion is all bunk.” Thomas Edison
The New York Times, 17 September 1994, in its Religious Notes column by David Gonzales, reported on the preparations for a college debate that would soon take place between a Hunter College team, and one from England touring the U.S. at the time. The topic: Is the world better off with religion?
I couldn’t resist saving the clipping, because I’m always on the lookout for examples of bad theology innocently stated. Mr. Gonzales introduced his readers to one of the debaters, 28-year old Daniel Mallon Durante, who was preparing to make the case that the world is better with religion. But the young Durante had been a “self-styled rebel, who went from school to pool hall and on to jobs as locksmith, plumber and printer before enrolling in college.” He had returned to his Brooklyn parish to find God, under the tutelage of Father James Zona. The rebel had been tamed: “Talking and praying with him, Father Zona helped him develop a deep and personal faith…”
Our 408 page paperback book, "Varieties of Jesus Mythicism", is now available for order on Amazon, and other online stores! Order it and spread the good news about Jesus at this holiday season!
You can order my anthology on god & horrendous suffering now! It's not available on any other site that I know other than from the publisher! Click on the link, then on the Preview, to get the pdf. There you'll read the Abstract, Advanced Endorsements, Table of Contents, Foreword by Dr, Stephen Law, the 5th chapter on Childhood Torture by Dr. Darren Slade, andAbout the Contributors. It's coming out as a hardback book. Get it!
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see…” These words were written by Anglican clergyman John Newton in 1772. About the same time these words were also written: “There is balm in Gilead, to make the wounded whole; there's power enough in heaven, to cure a sin-sick soul.” To be saved and cured: one of the most common claims about religion is that it brings comfort. Atheists are sometimes accused of insensitivity: why are we trying to destroy this source of comfort? People count on their religion to get them through the day, but they’ve been prompted in this hope by bad theology: The church has pushed the idea that, in our natural state, we are wretched and sin-sick.
I hadn't shared these pics before. I've already shared my transcripts. People wonder why I've gained the respect of many people both believers and non-believers. I attribute it to my education under Drs. James D. Strauss and William Lane Craig both of whom I majored under, along with my passion for truth.
The Fallibility of First Principles, by Gunther Laird (gunther.laird@gmail.com)
The late Norman Geisler was one of the most popular
proponents of Evangelical Christianity, wedding Calvinistic argumentation with
technical concepts drawn from the Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas.[1]
His son David Geisler continues his work, and recently contacted John W. Loftus
with a syllogism for God’s existence Norman had made in the Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics.
David asked my editor if he had “any atheistic friends that would be willing to
critique this more comprehensive argument for God’s existence and explain what’s wrong with it,” and I was one such friend, so John contacted me.
What follows is a brief critique of the entry “First
Principles” in the Encyclopedia,
which David copied verbatim in his email to John. The entry is quite
substantive, as Norman Geisler provided very detailed descriptions of a variety
of first principles, such as the Principle of Noncontradiction, the Principle
of Causality, and the Principle of Contingency, and explains why they cannot be
coherently denied under any circumstances.
We are so used to easy access to the Bible it’s easy to forget that for most of Christian history the laity did not have the Bible. That became possible in the wake of the invention of the printing press in 1450, and the move in the following century to translate the Bible into the languages spoken by the laity. So for well over a thousand years the church got people to believe what it wanted them to believe about Jesus. Itsold an idealized Jesus based primarily on Paul’s hallucinations of a resurrected Jesus who ruled in heavenly realms. During this long dark age of Bible ignorance, the laity learned the story of their lord through great works of art, stunning stained-glass renderings, and the word spoken from pulpits.
Christian philosopher of religion Dr. Win Corduan shows why I focus on concrete examples like a virgin birthed son of a god, and have such a low view of the philosophy of religion by philosophers who want to rationally discuss the probabilities of these kinds of ancient myths. He wrote a brief summary essay answering the question, What is the difference between objective and subjective claims? He argues there's a point at which subjective and objective claims are the same: "Clearly, the fact that I am making a subjective claim about feeling pain is an objective claim. And that matter can be tested pretty easily; just ask me. But whether I actually have the feelings that I’m telling you about, only I can know."
This isn't the real issue though, even if he's right. For the real issue concerns concrete claims like a virgin birthed son of a god. Those kinds of claims require objective evidence for them, since they're extraordinary claims of the highest order concerning events that are impossible to occur on their own within the natural world, based on everything we know about how the world works. So it doesn't matter if there's a point at which objective and subjective claims converge, even though I doubt that they do. Sure, I would see no reason to doubt Win's claim of pain since it's not an extraordinary one. But I cannot objectively feel his pain either. So I would have no way to conclusively test whether he's lying, without some objective evidence coming from a heart monitor or brain scan.
The real reason Win is addressing such a question is because there's no objective evidence for any of the miracle assertions in the Bible. Sorry if that's the case Win, but that's the case. Sorry if it ends your philosophical discussion Win, but it ends it. It could have turned out differently if there was a god who had the foresight to provide objective evidence for biblical miracles, Win. But your god didn't do that.
I occasionally see this meme on Facebook, with attribution to Mark Twain: “Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.” But this is probably wrong on three counts: (1) I have never been able to verify it as a Twain quote; (2) the first priests—those who stood out from the rest of their clans as possessing connections to the gods—probably were not con artists; (3) and the people who believed them sensed that the connection was genuine. Of course the time would come when con men took over—these days televangelists come to mind especially.
If this continues they will lose their political influence in America! I welcome this even as I hate what Trump has done to our country. LINK. Thanks to Robert Conner.
When did God stop caring about the Bible? No, it’s not a silly question. Many Christians are so sure that God guided the thoughts—and the pens—of the Bible authors, especially those who wrote the gospels and epistles: they got God’s truth right. But what an embarrassment: we don’t have what they wrote. All of the original manuscripts of the New Testament books were lost. The earliest scrap of a gospel—a few verses of John 18—dates early-to-mid second century. There are scholars who devote their careers to comparing ancient manuscripts, trying to figure out the wording of the original texts. The sloppy, haphazard coping process—by hand—went on for centuries. The scribes made thousands of errors. God couldn’t be bothered to protect and preserve the original documents? That wasn’t within his power? Fundamentalist theologians insist that the original manuscripts were without error: God’s perfect word. Even for them there’s just no denying that so many mistakes were made in the copying process. But their claim that the originals were perfect cannot be sustained.
Looks like it's a race to see which book of mine will be my very last one!
GCRR is set to release "God and Horrendous Suffering" early in November.
Hypatia Press says they're releasing "Varieties of Jesus Mythicism" early in December.
They can both lay claim to the title of last book, if this plays itself out. That's because "God and Horrendous Suffering" was the very last book I submitted for publication, no matter which one is released last!
I actually like that the mythicist book is to come out near Xmas, since people looking for books at that time might be drawn to its cover of an empty manger!
I also like it since the question of Jesus mythicism was one I avoided in order not to offend Christian believers in my early years. So it's good if it comes out last.
In my books I've said all I need to say on every important topic related to Christianity. That's all I can do. It should be enough for one person, even though the debate will continue. I must now live life to its fullest, love, laugh, sing, and dance.
Justin Brierley, producer of the Unbelievable? program, just solved the problem of evil. Not really, but he tries unsuccessfully to make a point about it and free will:
My comments to Justin Brierley:
Justin, anyone can turn a bullet into something good, and anyone can imagine on hindsight that some kind of suffering turns out for good. But an omniscient god is apparently incapable of imagining a world without suffering of the horrendous kind, when even a child can do so. What about a god who never allows humankind to discover gunpowder? What was so important to god that we needed it at all?
Additionally:
Yes, gunpowder has been extremely helpful to modernized society. But was the bloodshed and mayhem worth it when all god wants is for us to believe in him? Think of the murders, the bombs, and the wars, especially the noncombatants like children. The carnage is massive!
If for some indefensible notion god wanted us to discover gunpower, he could have made it discoverable to people who would only use it constructively in building roads, bridges, buildings and the like. He could also keep it away from evil people intent on evil purposes.
A perfectly loving god would do this. Does an omniscient all-powerful god not know how to do it?
Come on now, be honest, if your neighbor announced that he is heading off on a business trip “because I had a revelation from God that I have to go”: would you be impressed by his direct line to God—or would you be tempted to ask if he’d skipped his meds? Maybe the pope receives these kinds of messages—so the faithful hope—but your neighbor? Sometimes noisy televangelists boast that they’re passing on orders from God, but aside from their gullible followers, who believes them? Recently Lauren Boebert shouted to an enthusiastic crowd that God had told her to run for congress. We are alarmed by delusions in high places.
Why is my anthology about horrendous suffering? Because this is the category of suffering every reasonable person agrees is needless, the kind of suffering that a perfectly good, all powerful, all knowing god worthy of worship would eliminate if s/he existed.
In 1935, a professor of Christian history at the Sorbonne, Charles Guignebert, published a book titled simply, Jesus. I still have the worn copy that I read in college. In it he summed up the problem that has plagued New Testament scholarship for generations: “It was not the essence of Jesus that interested the authors of our gospels, it was the essence of Christ, as their faith pictured him. They are exclusively interested, not in reporting what they know, but in proving what they believe.” He also observed: "The Gospels are propaganda writings, intended to organize and authenticate. . .the legend represented in the sacred drama of the sect and to match it to the customs of the mythology of the time." Wikipedia describes Guignebert as “...one of the first French historians who approached this subject in a scientific way and not confessional.”
As an avid reader of ancient Mediterranean literature, I have come to regard Lucian as one of my most cherished Greek writers. A penetrating satirist and cultural critic, Lucian left behind numerous works, most of which apparently composed in Samosata (Roman Northern Syria) in the latter half of the second century C.E. With Syria having served as the nascent cradle of primitive Christianity, Lucian will have had an up-close familiarity with the religion, its earliest peddlers, and cult leaders. Unlike his contemporary Celsus, Lucian never wrote any detailed treatise against the religion, despite his more general campaign to expose superstition and fraudulence. In that sense, his candid appraisal of eastern Mediterranean Christians and their leaders provides one of but a few truly unvarnished external looks at the movement. For your enrichment here, I offer my own translated excerpt taken from his Greek text De Morte Peregrini (Περὶ τῆς Περεγρίνου Τελευτῆς), that is, Concerning the Death of Peregrinus. While the work itself, an account of martyrdom-by-way-of-stunt, merits a subsequent article here at D.C., one that I have already begun to compose, the specific segment on the Christians deserves its own special showcase here.
Careful, thorough study of Christianity’s ancient context provides an “Ah ha!” or “Uh oh” moment, depending on your perspective. For those who don’t accept Christian claims about its holy origins, it’s the former; for the devout, it’s the latter. The problem, of course, is that reality-based thinking about Christian origins doesn’t commonly trickle down to the folks in the pews, so they haven’t caught up with the news: the idea that Easter morning proves Christianity has been fatally wounded. Richard Carrier’s comprehensive essay, Dying-and-Rising Gods: It’s Pagan Guys. Get Over It provides the “Ah ha!’ moment for skeptics: dying-and-rising gods were celebrated by other cults in the ancient world. As Carrier has said, “Jesus was late to the party.”
First off, it seems more than a bit arrogant to claim to be the real deal in atheist philosophy (Real Atheology, RA), but then there's nothing that can be done about that adopted name now. Nonetheless, on Twitter RA Tweeted this excerpt and asked, "Don't know where this is from, but thoughts on this?" If it were me I'd like to know where it came from, and I certainly wouldn't put something like this out there unless I thought it had some merit. Turns out it was written by Catholic apologist Edward Feser denouncing the boogyman "scientism" which we've written about before. About scientism I merely say that when it comes to the nature of nature, its regularities, and its origins, science is the only way to gain the truth. What other alternative is there?
It's disheartening that some thoughtful atheists think what Feser said is worthy of consideration. But this isn't the only time RA puts science and objective evidence in the back. They also highly recommended an essay where they agree with Christian apologist Matthew Flannagan that atheist Graham Oppy "repudiates evidentialism." They're reading and listening to the WRONG PEOPLE! I doubt very much that Graham Oppy "repudiates evidentialism" even if he may repudiate the verfification principle(s) whereby only propositions that have evidence for them are meaningful. Ask him. He should weigh in on this issue. Evidence, objective evidence, is paramount. Otherwise we are building ivory castles in the sky where the ONLY thing that matters in consistency.
When it come to philosophy almost everyone gets it wrong. Let me explain...
Christian apologists—theologians, preachers, priests, Sunday School teachers—work so hard to explain away the big goofs in the Bible, which are not hard to spot. Why not just trim the Bible? Thomas Jefferson did that with the gospels, but traditions about the holiness of the Bible are firmly entrenched. Even so, can’t a committee of distinguished theologians and church officials get together to pray hard for divine inspiration about what actually should be in the holy text? Then they could announce the results and issue God’s Updated Bible.
A few obvious deletions come to mind, e.g., Luke’s Jesus script (14:26) that hatred of family and life are requirements for following him; Matthew’s claim that lots of dead people walked around Jerusalem on Easter morning (Matthew 27:52-53); the list of new Christian skills the resurrected Jesus announced in Mark 16:17-18 (e.g., drinking poison, handling snakes, casting out demons)—after all, we know this last one is in the fake ending of the gospel. So there’s a lot of cleaning up for the God’s Updated Bible committee to do.
The chapters in this book combine to show that it’s exceedingly improbable to the point of refutation for the god of Orthodox Theism to exist. The main problem is an evidential one regarding horrendous suffering. A perfectly good god would be opposed to it, an all-powerful god would be capable of eliminating it, and an all-knowing god would know what to do about it. So the existence of horrendous suffering in our world leads us to think god is either not powerful enough to eliminate it, or does not care enough to eliminate it, or is just not smart enough to know what to do about it.
It also addresses other issues such as the lack of objective evidence for miracles, the absurdity of theistic myths, the relationship of horrendous suffering to differing theologies and religious faiths, the horrendous nature of the biblical god, the horrendous actions done because of religious faith, and how these considerations can personally lead reasonable people away from religion.
The authors discuss this issue philosophically, theologically, apologetically, biblically, religiously, historically, and personally. It’s an excellent model for how philosophers, apologists, and theologians should’ve been discussing this problem decades ago.
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But my call was required by understanding Dr. Peter Boghossian. I first heard of him in a video where he argued "faith based belief processes are unreliable". His target is against faith itself, faith without sufficient evidence, blind faith, which is the only kind of faith that exists. If faith involves trust, there is no reason to trust in faith.
I concluded that it's irrational to reason about religious doctrines that have no objective evidence for them.
Is it ever rational to believe a proposition that requires objective evidence but does not have any objective evidence for it? No! Is it ever rational to believe a religion that requires objective evidence but does not have any objective evidence for it? No! Just consider the gospel claim that a virgin gave birth to the son of a god, and you'll easily see this point. I've written about faith on multiple occasions, especially agreeing with what George H. Smith said about it.
No wonder William Lane Craig doesn't want to debate me on this proposition: "There is sufficient objective evidence for the miracle assertions in the Bible."
Is this claim too boring, too uninteresting for agnostics and atheists to focus on? Why are they focusing on anything else? Why? Curious truth-seekers want to know.
--------------
Thank you for reading and for your support! We think you'll find a perspective here that you don't usually find elsewhere. Never miss out on future posts by becoming a follower. To make a donation of any size please click here. If you buy anything on Amazon [US] through this link it provides a kickback at no cost to you. Thanks again!
Zuckerman is the author of several books, including The Nonreligious, Living the Secular Life, and Society without God. He is a professor of sociology at Pitzer College and the founding chair of the nation’s first secular studies program. He's uniquely qualified to help answer the most important questions believers have when considering to leave their faith. "How can you be moral without God?" "Where do you get your morals from?" My advice will be to get his book, What It Means to Be Moral: Why Religion Is Not Necessary for Living an Ethical Life. Below are some high recommendations for it:
“Where did this story come from?” “Where did the author find his information?” “Why did the translator add a footnote?” “Does this story deserve to be in sacred scripture?” Question everything. But maybe this kind of curiosity is too much work, and it undermines the intent of those who promote the Bible as the indispensible foundation for faith. They want you to inhale, to soak in the spiritual meaning that every Bible chapter provides. But when we question everything, it turns out that spiritual meaning is often absent. Or contrived. Religious bureaucrats have tried too hard. A lot of folks have turned away from the faith because there is so much in the Bible that is worthless—or at least trends toward that end of the spectrum.
The evidence against the importance of the Philosophy of Religion is found exactly where we would expect it to be found. Just consider what it would take to be convinced that Christianity is true. The overwhelming answer is not philosophy. It's the requirement for sufficient objective evidence. See for yourselves in four definitive answers given by four different atheist writers. LINK. Our answers revolve around the five most powerful reasons not to believe. Spread the word, and don't forget to mention my book Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End.
Dr. Kip Davis on evidence that demands a verdict concerning Josh McDowell's dishonest conversion story, and what it says about McDowell's apologetics. If you skip to 48:26 you'll hear a brief summary of Davis's points and a powerful conclusion. Then go back and watch the whole damnable thing.
“Bibliolatry is the worship of a book, idolatrous homage to a book, or the deifying of a book. It is a form of idolatry. The sacred texts of some religions disallow icon worship, but over time the texts themselves are treated as sacred the way idols are, and believers may end up effectively worshipping the book.” So says Wikipedia, and adds that, “Historically, Christianity has never endorsed worship of the Bible, reserving worship for God.” I suspect this is just flat-out wrong.
Phil Bair was suggested by James K. Walker to debate me. Walker is a Christian apologist and former Mormon who is President at Watchman Fellowship. I hadn't heard of Phil before. But he seems smart enough. Anyone who has read my anthology on miracles and still disagrees gets my attention.
Phil offered two objections to my defense of the aphorism, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
ONE) Phil Bair: “You have no criteria for identifying what qualifies as extraordinary evidence for an extraordinary claim.” My response:
Here is Dr. Boghossian's resignation letter. I don't have the time to express my thoughts on the complex issues involved. But this is sad to me. I have appreciated my friend Peter over the years. I greatly appreciate his game changing book, A Manual for Creating Atheists. His emphasis on the inadequacies of faith and the importance of the Socratic Method for seeking belief change are of the upmost importance. This focus alone creates atheists. [See tag below]
He has been a great encourager of what I do. He has invited me into his atheism class via Skype and Zoom to talk with his students. He wrote a fantastic chapter in my anthology Christianity is Not Great and some blurbs for a few of my books, most notably the one on miracles, and my last one on horrendous suffering. He is truly a gadfly just like Socrates. I wish him all the best. If he does nothing else he has changed the world. But I suspect he's not done yet.
In the face of massive human and animal suffering, Christian apologists offer tired clichés:
·God works in mysterious ways
·God has a larger plan that we cannot see or know about
·To preserve our free will, God chooses not to interfere
Yet no hard evidence is offered to back up these speculations to exonerate God. They are mediocre theological responses to crises in the real world.
In fact, Christian theology itself undermines any credible concept of a good, competent God. God is watching carefully, i.e., Christianity is totalitarian monotheism.
Nothing we do escapes his notice: “I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter;for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12:36-37
Moreover, prayer works because God can even read our minds. Christians believe in, love, worship, and sing songs to this God who pays such close attention to every human being.
“I’m calling out a silent rebellion by followers of Jesus—including many of his most devout disciples—against some of his key teachings. One characteristic of these teachings is that if they were uttered by anyone other than Jesus, these same believers would reject them immediately and openly, instead of pretending they must mean something else or are too mysterious to grasp.”
The book’s website includes the Table of Contents and a chart of 292 Jesus quotes that fall into four categories. (1) Preaching about the end times; (2) scary extremism; (3) bad advice and bad theology; (4) the unreal Jesus of John’s gospel.
I'm posthumously posting six chapters from an unfinished book sent to me for comment in 2008 by the late John Beversluis (see Tag below). This is chapter 6, his last chapter on John the Baptist.
A tribal Near Eastern deity meticulously observes our every thought, word, and deed, or so the biblical texts teach their impressionable reader. The New Testament introduces this deity to converts as an all-loving parent-figure, yet—how weird and creepy can this get—an inaccessible parent who watches his “children” as if through well-stationed peepholes and hidden surveillance cams, never approaching them, speaking to them audibly, hugging them, cooking them a meal, or providing for them in any palpable, direct (read “evident”) way. According to Christian theology, the deity is “present” actively “loving” his creation; yet the cosmos machinates on in cold silence, not admitting the slightest evidence of this alleged fatherly care. Biblical religion instead requires of converts a sheer fideism, a make-believe mental assertion of divine presence and supreme love in the face of the contrary, what Luther called the deus absconditus, the god who hides.
I’ve been in book-promotion mode since my new book was published last week: Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught. One of the things I did was arrange an ad on Facebook. I carefully selected the target audience, e.g., atheist, humanist, freethinker, secular. Facebook gave me an estimate of how many people would be reached, which was pretty impressive. But as it turned out, many people who were not in my selected targets got included. That is, the ad popped up on the timelines of Christians. The reaction was predictable: Hell hath no fury...like an offended Christian.
Look for this Christian documentary in September. It bills itself as examining medical evidence for supernatural miracles, and in engaging skeptics. I was interviewed for it. "Leading atheist and skeptic voices featured in the film include authors Michael Shermer, John Loftus and James Randi who provide their perspectives." Send Proof LINK. This is quite an honor as you might guess. I hope I did my part justice.
With the Deviousness of the Texas's Abortion Law the
Texas GOP theocrats have effectively found a way to gut Roe v. Wade, and it's
disgustingly appalling to me.
I was talking with my
older brother this past weekend who said Trump's nominees to the Supreme Court
were the best actions of this twice impeached one term past President. He
said the nine Justices ought to make their decisions based on the
original intent of the Constitution. This should be the main qualification for
Supreme Court Justices, since they are not part of the legislative branch of
the government.
We disagreed. Let me
explain why originalism is a misleading misinformed bogeyman of conservatives.
The crux of the issue with regard to Christianity and other miracle based religions--especially when it comes to unverifiable and unfalsifiable miracles in the past--is this one. Dr. David Madison has repeatedly challenged believers to come up with a revelation from a god that has been verified for all. So far there are no claimants. The intractable difficultly is that there is no miracle claim in the Bible that has any--and I mean any--objective evidence for it at all! None! At all! Much less sufficient objective evidence. LINK. So I find it strange that anyone--and I mean anyone--takes the miracle claims in the Bible seriously, along with the apologists who defend them despite not having any--and I mean any--objective evidence for them.
I'm posthumously posting six chapters from an unfinished book sent to me for comment in 2008 by the late John Beversluis (see Tag below). This is part 2 of 2 parts of his fifth chapter on the virgin birth narratives. I would disagree with Beversluis that Jesus was good moral person who offered good moral advice, but he was influenced by Thomas Paine and Jefferson's writings. [On this issue see Dr. David Madison's excellent newly dropped book!]
