[Update, see below]
Recently Craig refused to debate me again. But not just me this time. He also refused to debate Robert Price, Hector Avalos, and Richard Carrier, three other contributors to the anthology to be released in April called
The Christian Delusion. Maybe he ought to refuse to debate everyone who contributed to that book, right? Here's the story:
Check it out. This is excellent and non-refutable.
That's right, or so he claims. What is missing from his credal statement? What is different from the historic creeds of the faith? Convert I say.
If you haven't already watched this it's worth looking at to understand what he thinks:
Listen to this duffas. He's a buffoon, a brainwashed person.
A recent post, titled
Based on This Argument Alone The Best Any Believer Can Claim is Agnosticism, has gained a lot of attention and been sidetracked by Christians who seek to defend their beliefs rather than think through it. To these Christians let me show you a much better way to argue your case, coming from a gay guy named Gaylord Martha Focker on
Facebook, whose beliefs I can't say for sure, even if his his response is dead wrong:
The provocatively titled blog by Leah Elliott Hauge called
The Whore of All the Earth first linked to this brief but incredible TED talk. Fisher tells us of the science of lust, romantic love, and attachment, and it blows away the ancient Biblical understandings in several ways. View it and then let's count the number of ways this science destroys Biblical understandings, shall we? Once again it's Science vs Religion and once again believers will denigrate science. Go figure. How many times must they do this to believe?
On Facebook I became a fan of the group "I may be going to hell but at least all my friends will be there." It's just a fun group and I can do fun. But then a Christian friend of mine and I got into a brief conversation about it:
I really liked how Sam Harris answered Karen Armstrong's
Foreign Policy article
right here, although she got the last word. What's wrong with the liberals? Why don't they get it? Sam's sarcastic answer is a much better response than trying to reason with people like her, so it's better than
my review of her book,
The Case For God. But they just don't get it.
Jen McCreight has complied a large list of awesome female atheists. Kudos to them and many thanks for all their efforts in our fight against superstition, pseudoscience, and ignorance. We need them! Let me rather say it this way: I'm glad to join with them in this common cause. So far her list includes:
PZ Myers has topped every atheist poll so far and isn't doing too bad as a write-in on the
most influential female atheist of 2009. ;-) He creamed all challengers on my own
most vocal atheist poll, and right now he's beating out
everyone in the universe combined. Since he wins all polls here's one in the sidebar where
he cannot win in every category! We've got him this time. So which will it be?
I support this wholeheartedly:
Check out this video of "Noah's Ark and the Great Flood":
Hear Christopher Hitchens interviewed by Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell. He's defending
the fundamentalist critique of liberalism. You see, I agree with the fundamentalist critique of liberalism, as well as the liberal critique of fundamentalism. I agree with the Catholic critique of Protestantism as well as the Protestant critique of Catholicism. They debunk themselves leaving us no reason to accept Christianity in any form. HT: Hemant Mehta.
And lookee here. I bested all but two of them. Now that Jim West is off the market I only need to overtake J.L. Watts for the number one slot. Can it be done? I wonder how I could convince him that he is
boring too. ;-)
Here is an interesting scenario I have wondered myself, so I'd appreciate any input on it since I'm not a scientist:
A GPI comparison of theistic nations to atheist nations shows us that peace
is non-theistic.
Watch the following interview and then read what I consider a refutation of
Reformed Epistemology by Dr. Jaco Gericke afterward. Who wins?
What I’m engaging in here at
Debunking Christianity is a huge challenge. I like big challenges. So let me offer one to Christians...
In light of the developments of the last week or more let me recap what has happened. See what you think. I’ll try to keep this brief as possible and I’ll number my points for easy reference, not that I have to, okay?
That's right. For even if some kind of god exists the believer has no reasonable way to know anything about such a god, hence a theistic kind of agnosticism. dguller expressed this cogent argument very well in the comments:
That's right. Not as pictured on the left but a bigger version of the one on the right:
See the story here. Now pseudo-apologists will start finding the remains of a big bowl boat in the mountains of Turkey, right? Right!
It looks like Luke over at
Common Sense Atheism does one a month.
Check them out.
When I first read the selection below I was a believer and thought what Swinburne wrote on this topic in his book,
The Existence of God (1979 ed.), was excellent. No longer do I think so.
I had linked earlier to a site about
Reasoning Fallacies. I think it's time to illustrate them with some real examples of how most Christians argue at DC in a series of short Blog posts. I'll illustrate several of the most blatant fallacies as I see them using that link's nomenclature. Don't get caught or I might write you up for it. ;-) This could be the beginnings of a book, we'll see!
Ricky Gervais describes why he became an atheist.
Link. Gervais directed and starred in the comedy
The Invention of Lying.
Yep, that's true of most of them in my opinion. Here's exhibit "A" named Brad Haggard, and my response. Watch how easy this is because I am not in that box of theirs.
This is a challenge emailed to me from Johnny Pearce. It's interesting:
In May of 2008 I had called upon skeptics to create an organization for
doing humanitarian works. It now looks as if that is going to happen with the
Foundation Beyond Belief. I first heard about it from former DC team member Valerie Tarico
on Exchristian.net. Here is a video about it below:
They're both still missing! ;-) Maybe if and when Jim West comes back he'll deal with what
Dr. Hector Avalos and others wrote here. Sorry, but anyone who claims like Jim West did that "Atheism is insanity. Hence, there’s no more point in arguing with (or even discussing things with) an atheist than there is in walking into an insane asylum and attempting to carry on a lucid conversation with persons utterly devoid of the gift of lucidity," doesn't deserve my respect. For I am one of those people and I take those attacks personally.
I like this one. Women don't always get their fair share of respect.
Go Vote.
Yep, that's what I think, and I don't think he understands what it is enough to offer an effective critique, so this will probably be my last reply to him. We'll see...
That is if you're a young earth creationist. ;-) Hat Tip to
Stephen Law for this.
Check it out here where you'll also see my initial response.
Professor Alan Lenzi posted a CBS 60 Minutes video that I found very interesting about the Wetlands in Southern Iraq where the Sumerian's lived in Ur of Chaldees, the birthplace of civilization.
Richard Dawkins 1794 (19%)
PZ Myers 6805 (72%)
Christopher Hitchens 1022 (10%)
Bill Maher 249 (2%)
Dan Dennett 104 (1%)
Sam Harris 126 (1%)
Victor Stenger 76 (0%)
Michael Shermer 93 (0%)
Dan Barker 100 (1%)
Hemant Mehta 1157 (12%)
"You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger and you don't mess around with him."
Yep, that's what I've concluded. Theirs is a faith that must dismiss the tragedy of death. It does not matter to them who dies, how many people die, or what the circumstances are when they die. It could be the death of a mother whose baby depends upon her for milk during the first few months of life. It could be a pandemic like cholera that decimated parts of the world in 1918, or the more than 23,000 children who die every single day from starvation. These deaths could be by suffocation, drowning, a drive-by shooting, or being slowly burned to death. It doesn't matter to them. Their God is good. Death doesn't matter. People die all of the time.
Hey, I'm just tooting my own horn. Why not? It sounds good to me on New Years Eve, since that's what we do. Here are the rankings:
Sometimes I lose patience when I have to respond to the same ill-informed drivel week after week that I just decide to make a post about it. It's claimed that since
Prometheus Books is an ideologically driven publishing house it's not an objective publisher and should be regarded as inferior to some other publishers. Let's think about this, okay?
Here's some comic relief by using literal lyrics to the video "Total Eclipse of the Heart." It made me laugh out loud.
It's curious to me how often most Christians just do not think about some things. Has it ever occurred to you how human beings first learned what killed us? Take lead poisoning for instance. Do you know that people had to die before we could figure it out? Then think about all of the poisonous plants and venomous creatures. People had to die from eating certain plants and being bitten by certain creatures before we knew what not to do. Take polluted water. Same thing. Read the book,
The Ghost Map and see for yourself. You see, there was no other way. None. And if a good God existed and put us in this environment he didn't do us any good. At best a good God would've told us in advance to avoid the kinds of things that will kill our daughters, fathers, husbands and wives. But he didn't. So he knew in advance people would have to die tragic and sudden deaths before we could figure it out.
Since I don't have a doctorate and the title to my blog is an attention getter some Christian scholars don't think much of me when they first hear of me. Don't misunderstand me. I do have some credentials. To see them just click on my profile page (later Dr. Hector Avalos is going to compare my credentials with those of Jim West). As an atheist I have been honored to speak at a Midwest regional meeting of the
Evangelical Philosophical Society, and was a panelist for the annual
Society of Biblical Literature last year. In February I'm debating Dinesh D'Souza at the
University of Illinois. So this should all say something I'd guess. But to those still unpersuaded let me show you the respect I have gained from some Christian scholars because of my arguments. I have regularly engaged Christian philosophers and apologists here at DC, some of whom you know.
Well, I did it folks. I bested all but two Bibliobloggers in rankings this month, the other results
can be found here. This has caused
no small problem for some Bible bloggers, since they just can't stand the fact that a Blog named "Debunking Christianity" outranked nearly all of them. Now some of them are personally attacking me.
Apparently, the list was shut down because of me,
one lone secular Bible blogger! ;-) Now they'll attack me because I'm crowing about it. But then there is no bigger rooster than Jim West who crowed about his ranking every single month when he was at the top of the list. If someone starts another list I'll be sure to apply for that one too. Whatever criteria they use to exclude me will exclude others, maybe lots of others, including Jim West himself, if the criteria is changed to say one must have an earned doctorate from a recognized accredited institution! ;-) I didn't mean to cause this much trouble. I just wanted to be included. But it has been fun to see their reaction, that's all. More later...
Yep, Christian Bloggers are upset about the fact that I bested nearly all of them this month, being ranked 4th over most all of them (maybe 3rd if we wait until tomorrow to see). Now come
the personal attacks. They'll claim it's because I crowed about this feat,
which I did, and that I attacked Jim West's
credentials, which you can see both Dr. Hector Avalos and I did, although West attacked my credentials to be a Biblioblogger first. They'll also say it's because I criticized an argument of his,
which I did. But the bottom line is that West and the rest just can't stand it. And they're censoring my comments, so in the interests of fairness I'll post what I said for you to judge for yourself whether my latest comment should be censored:
This poll was suggested to me by
Craig A. James and it's a good one. This time before starting the poll I'd like your input. I have Ray Comfort, Dinesh D'Souza (a friend of mine I'll admit), James White, Oral Roberts, Ken Hamm, and possibly JP Holding. Were there any high profile scandals I'm missing, or others you'd like to see included? Other nominees can be suggested below. Tell me why you think they should be included.
Go ahead. See what you think.
By Martin Beckford of the
Telegraph:
Can you see why atheists are so passionate about this? See below:
Why not share my little tidbits with everyone and not have to write stuff twice, right?
Then he is perpetrating a sham, trying to push himself and his work off as a credible scholar from a recognized institution. A
comment from Dr. Hector Avalos alerted me to this. Sounds like Jim "protests too much" doesn't it? Here is what I found:
Suggest them here or over at
Atheist Revolution. Jim West anyone? After all, look what he thinks of atheists:
Jim West just can't take it, 'cause that means he can't crow anymore about his monthly rankings. Sorry Mr. Bible Belt, but you just got roped in by this cowboy. Your time is over, you has-been. So now he's resorted to slamming me
not just once, but
twice. For the record, I'm now ranked in 4th place among Bibliobloggers at Alexa, coming in at 223,352, overtaking the prolific
James McGrath, who's definition of a miracle includes such a feat. No wonder they don't want to do the list anymore, 'cause who wants it known that a site called "Debunking Christianity" beat out most Bible Blogs. This is a smack down, I'd say, and I was only getting started. ;-)
Derren Brown is a skeptic who tried to get various religious leaders to embrace and endorse his spiritual powers. The episodes I recommend here have to do with Derren converting other skeptics with the touch of his hand in front of an evangelical pastor, and he pulled it off! What the hell went on here? Who are we as human beings? This stuff puzzles me to no end. Is it just the era we live in, or the human mind that has a transcendental temptation? See for yourself, especially episodes 2-4 below.
I'm conducting the first time ever DC poll for the most vocal or outspoken atheist of the year. I'm including Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Christopher Hitchens, Bill Maher, Dan Dennett, Sam Harris (more of an agnostic), Michael Shermer, Victor Stenger, Dan Barker, and Hemant Mehta. If I left out someone notable let me know. Again, this is for the year 2009. I'm even going to let you choose more than one just in case you cannot decide.
Here is what I think as I went through the archives. See what you think. It seems as though I lean heavily toward later posts because they are fresh on my mind, but then again maybe it's because I keep getting better and better! Here's the countdown:
In perhaps one respect for sure...
Here at DC I try to carry on a reasonable discussion with people who disagree with me. In the interests of fairness, what do you think of Pat Condell's approach below? I agree with him that Christian beliefs are ridiculous. And I know many Christians think atheism is ridiculous. What if both sides in this debate approached each other as Condell suggests? Many of them do.
If you want to read these testimonies you need to visit or bookmark
Ex-Christian.net. They're coming from a wide variety of backgrounds. And they're doing so for a wide variety of reasons because there are so many reasons to do so.
Here are the lecture videos from
Atheist Alliance International 2009 conference, in descending order of awesomeness as posted by Luke of
Common Sense Atheism:
Link
Is it true that because we atheists argue against God that we secretly believe? Balderdash!
Hemant Mehta has a good analysis of the recent Gallup Poll.
Check it out here.
Yep, last month I ranked
eighth place over more than 350 Bible Blogs. It annoyed them so much they decided to quit doing the list, especially since they could see I was climbing it this month! Ha!
One lone secular Bible Blogger shut it all down! They could see me coming and we can't have that, now can we? Jim West decided to do one himself anyway and among the top ranked Blogs from last month DC climbed to 6th place! Here's who made it to the top 15 (notice West couldn't bring himself to list the names of our Blogs, 'cause who wants it known that "Debunking Christianity" beat out so many of them):
Who do you think is doing this? Christians, that's who, evangelicals. This is the mind of the believer where no evidence is required except an accusation:
I can prove I'm sitting at my computer, that I have children, that I have a wife, and that I wrote a book. I can prove all sorts of negative claims with regard to these things. I can prove I am not sleeping or playing ball right now (negative claims). I can show you I'm not doing these things by having an online chat right now on my computer. I can prove I am not childless. If you ask me to prove I'm not childless, then birth certificates and DNA evidence should do the trick. I can prove I am not single. If you ask me to prove I am not single I can show you my marriage certificate, and my wife. I can also prove I am not a non-author (notice how I phrased it?). That is, I can prove a negative, plenty of them, easily.
It's about prayer, and this video is awesome! Since I've been talking about prayer recently, check it out below:
Navigate around at
Closer to the Truth. There are some very interesting videos on a number of different topics by top notch philosophers, scientists and apologists, and they keep adding to it. You could spend hours and hours there. There are many hours of videos about
the God question too. Let me know which ones you find interesting.
First posted on 10/18/08
"A debate before a packed house at the University of Hawaii with Professor of Physics Victor Stenger in which Craig and Stenger square off on such issues as the Big Bang and the beginning of time, the odds of the fine-tuning of the constants and quantities requisite for life, evil and moral values, religious experience, and many more."
She's a great gal, don't get me wrong. But as a good Lutheran with a family that's what she said over the holiday season about the religious questions I raise. She prefers to be ignorant. Ignorance is bliss, right? It's not that she isn't intelligent, because she is. It's not that she isn't educated, because she's a
Nurse Practitioner. She knows enough to know that if she were to question her faith it could lessen her faith. She knows enough to know that she doesn't have the time to investigate her faith given her busy life. She knows the struggle it would produce in her to believe. She knows enough to know that. I don't think this position is defensible at all, but at least she's honest. I wonder how many other believers have an ostrich type head-in-the-sand approach to their faith and what would happen if they all decided to become informed?
This is a must see documentary!
When I hear this song by Bruce Springsteen I think of my sweetheart wife Gwen. She's wonderful. She's my best supporter and my best friend. There are some Christian people who can boast about being married for 30-50 years or more. But they aren't happy in a loveless relationship. They're just fulfilling a commitment made when they were around 20 years old or so. To everyone at this season I wish you all the love I've found. If men my age only knew her the way I do I'd have to literally fight them off.
I can remember when growing up nearly everyone called July 4th "Independence Day." It wasn't July 4th so much as it had a name. When referring to celebrations on that day we didn't say "have a great 4th," we said "have a great independence day." So at this season when there is a war on Christmas let me say, "Have a happy 25th." Sure, it may not seem to have a ring to it, but then who knows what the future will bring?
I'm conducting the first time ever DC poll for the most vocal or outspoken atheist of the year. I'm including Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Christopher Hitchens, Bill Maher, Dan Dennett, Sam Harris (more of an agnostic), Michael Shermer, Victor Stenger, Dan Barker, and Hemant Mehta. If I left out someone notable let me know. Again, this is for the year 2009. I'm even going to let you choose more than one just in case you cannot decide.
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