I'm coming up with 25 hot topics for a Christian scholar and I to discuss in a book. I think I'll separate my questions into different categories: science, epistemology, ethics, history, psychology, Bible, theology (soteriology, Jesus, eschatology, hermeneutics), and so forth. This particular scholar is a new breed of evangelical who won't be caught off-guard with your typical fundamentalist stumpers. Thanks for all your suggestions so far. Don't assume if I use what you suggest that I didn't already think of it.
I had previously mentioned that a Christian scholar and myself are co-writing a book. We've just made it out of the planning stage. We had to have a book proposal with a promise of appealing to readers. Well, we've settled on one tentatively titled "God or Godless? Fifty Five Minute Debates." It will be designed for people who want some short answers (500 words each) to hot topics surrounding the theist/atheist debates. I am to come up with 25 hot topics and he will come up with 25 more. While I don't think short answers get the job done right, they can be interesting and informative just the same. Which ones would you suggest for me?
Watch this if you want to see something spooky:
Christians claim that until skeptics can agree on an alternative natural explanation to the resurrection accounts told in the Gospels that the Gospels should be accepted as the truth. They further claim that by offering other natural explanations to these accounts it shows that skeptics are merely grasping at straws to reject the claims of the gospel. But these accusations are Balderdash! They're not even close...not even in the ballpark...not even on the radar.
Well that's what I've been doing for two months shy of five years here on a daily basis. On day one these Mormons tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, that I was never a Mormon, that I'm not criticizing their kind of Mormonism, that I have not shown their faith to be impossible, which is an impossible standard, and so forth, coming from the scholarly types as well as the kids in Junior High who think they can argue against me. They use non-sequiturs, red herrings, special pleading, begging the question, and either/or fallacies then beat their chests and crow about how they have refuted me and all atheists. Then comes day two, which is more of the same ignorance. Then comes day three. For nearly five years. I'm tired of playing nice. I'm turning over to the dark side. They are buffoons, utterly devoid of the ability to recognize they are brainwashed who repeat platitudes as if they are something new and profound which I have never heard or thought of before.
In a private letter to his nephew Peter Carr, Jefferson offers some advice on how to study religion, which represents the OTF that I defend:
The first question is What do you mean by that? The second one is How do you know? Now let's apply this to the statement: Jesus died for our sins. What sense can we make of it? How can anyone know it's true?
Here's something that calls out for an explanation and no amount of Bible verses will help. What is the content of salvific faith (i.e. the kind of belief that saves a person)? What must someone believe to be saved? Simple? Not so fast. A child who confesses Jesus is lord is saved, right? I dare anyone to ask a ten year old what she thinks of Jesus, what it means to say he is lord, whether she thinks he is God, God-in-the-flesh, the 2nd person of the trinity, or a really really big guy, and so on and so forth. Ask her to define each of her words. Anyone can say "Jesus is lord" then. Does doing so save a person unless said person has the correct detailed theology that goes with it? There is no doubt in my mind that a child holds to heretical ideas when asked about them. OR, she's expressing words she has no clue as to their meaning. But if so, then there are surely professing Christians of all ages, probably most of them, who think they are saved but are not, and this could be........YOU! Since this must be the case if one is saved by faith, this is a barbaric way to base a person's salvation upon--that not only must believers express the right words but also have the proper understanding of them.
This is a distinction that makes a difference. It also makes a great deal of sense. Believers think that if their concept of God can explain the cosmos then automatically ipso facto they have arrived at the God they believe in, who acted in the world. Nope. Not by a long shot. For a god might explain the cosmos and yet not be Yahweh. And even if Yahweh is that god, he might not have raised Jesus from the dead. And even if Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead, he might not be the classical theistic God of Anselm.
Yahweh did not exist. He is much too tribal of a god, created the world in conflict with the sea God Rahab, married to Asherah, accepted child sacrifice, commanded genocide, forbid worship of all other gods (didn't deny their existence), and chose Israel like the others gods did to other nations.
A lot is made by Christian philosophers about their background "priors" when assessing the truth of Christian theism. Their claim is that with their particular "priors" they are warranted in concluding from those "priors" the evidence leads them to their faith. My claim is that they have the cart before the horse, big time, bad time.
Some things are hard to explain in a video, but Rhetorical Bullshit gives it a try:
This is both an entertaining and informative video:
See what you think below:
When did God create the Candiru parasite? And why didn't he tell us how to avoid it? Seems to me a good God who cared for us would at least tell us, don't you?
Ask some non-believing outsiders what they think of the so-called evidence for Christianity. Ask, oh, let's see where should I start, Muslims, Hindu's, Buddhists, Christian Scientists, witch doctors...
Calculate the conversion rates and get back to me. But there's more to it:
I am as certain that Christianity is false as Christians are that people are wasting time and money on cold fusion. [I know someone is trying to make headway in that field so don't get me wrong]. I am as certain that Christianity is false as I am that Scientology or Mormonism is false. If I'm risking hell you would think I must be sure of it, right?
We are all justifiably certain that some ideas and theories are wrong. It's easy to do. We merely conclude the case has not been made.
But these are not beliefs of mine. I am not affirming anything. I'm denying something. I deny the cases have been made. Some cases I have never even considered before, but tell me of them and I'll deny them without further thought. We all do this. So I am not doing anything out of the ordinary when I do so.
was a page turner for me. Not only is it about two of my favorite subjects *ahem* but it is a one stop shop to learn about a complete range of sexual issues in the Bible by a biblical scholar. We learn about sexual terminology in the Hebrew culture like "hands" "feet" "flesh" "nakedness" and "to know." When Ruth uncovered Boaz's feet (Ruth 3:7-8) guess what she was probably doing folks, yep, probably giving him some head--Yeahhhh baby!!!!
by Thom Stark. It's also a request to Christians: admit that the Bible is a mess and stop passing on its toxicity to us.
offers a fascinating explanation of self-deception—how it works, the harm it can cause, and how we can overcome it.
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