Reppert has been thinking and responding to the OTF longer than any other informed believer I know of, so if you are a believer and you object to the OTF then learn from him. When first confronted with the OTF Reppert criticized it as embracing too radical of a skepticism. Then over the years as I explained it to him further he now says he's a graduate of the OTF and wants a diploma. Cute. As far as I can tell most believers criticize the OTF when they first hear of it. Then they go through the same stages Reppert has gone though, by subsequently embracing it in the face of my arguments, basically wanting their diplomas too. Should I start printing them off and signing them just because they say so? First, here is what Reppert recently admitted:
Faith is pure wishful thinking, nothing more and nothing less. It offers a person a leap beyond what the probabilities actually lead us to think. For if something can be known to be the case we wouldn't need faith. Faith therefore is not a virtue when it comes to knowing the truth about anything. Skepticism is.
Yep, he does not deal with what scientifically minded skeptics actually think.
I just cannot seem to disabuse him of his inconsistent position. He said:
Almost all of the objections to the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) are red herrings placed in the road to sidetrack us from getting at the truth. They do not understand the perspective of an outsider, or they grossly misrepresent it in favor of faith. Since I like beating my head against the wall, let me try again.
Why Dr. Flannagan is still Wrong
This is getting ridiculous and predictable. So let me get this straight, okay? In order to believe, Flannagan must denigrate science. Get it.? What utter rubbish. This alone should cause believers to question why they believe what they do based on their upbringing in a Christian culture. Science is the only antidote to how easily we can believe and defend what we were taught on our Mama's knees.
Dr. Flannagan's use of sources shows some careless scholarship.
Dr. Matt Flannagan, of the MandM blog, has directed a few criticism at my chapters (“Yahweh is A Moral Monster” and “Atheism was not the Cause of the Holocaust”) in The Christian Delusion. Those criticisms rest not only on a basic misunderstanding and misreading of my arguments, but also on a very selective and uncritical reading of the sources Flannagan cites for support.
This is my chosen title for a guest sermon I'll be preaching for the "One True Church of Jesus Christ That Has Ever Existed in History." The preacher is away on vacation. This church meets in a little building on "Faith" Street in a town called Saint Paul, Missouri, the "Show Me" state (never-mind the oxymoron). They have a membership of 10 people, all related to each other in some way. Here are my chosen texts. How should I develop my sermon?
I agree wholeheartedly with his assessment of the OTF:
I have had several debates in defense of the OTF. This post will serve as the key resource for these links:
Here's a clip with the standard Christian responses to reasoned arguments:
That's the Christian claim, that non-Christians reject the gospel because we prefer to sin (or do wrong). Let's try to put this canard to rest.
Written by TGBaker:
I developed this ditty from a Facebook spat with a friend of mine who is a Christian Philosopher, Dr. James F. Sennett. I had never really thought about this area before. But I think it produces another problem with the omni-attributes of a proposed god.
This video is from QualiaSoup:
There is just something about the Christian story that makes me want to believe it. I know of no other story like this one. In fact, when I watch music videos of the Christian story I feel its psychological pull on me, and I'm a former believer who has rejected that story. So how much more does the story have a great amount of psychological pull on the hearts of others, especially believers, whose faith is confirmed whenever they ponder it. Case in point are the three videos below:
This is just one of many ways to take the OTF:
On pages 11-15 of his critique of the OTF Christian philosopher Thomas Talbott discusses “The Presumption of Skepticism.” According to him there are three “different kinds of skepticism.” There is “the skepticism of disbelief,” which sometimes requires “a kind of dogmatic certainty.” This is my kind of skepticism he opines, and he implicitly suggests I come across as a “closed-minded dogmatist.” The second kind of skepticism is that of “suspended belief,” which is his kind of skepticism that is “incompatible with dogmatic certainty and sometimes arises when one has the humility to recognize the limits of one’s own knowledge.” Since this is so he says of himself, “I am a true skeptic.” *cough* The third kind of skepticism is “merely the opposite of being overly gullible,” which is a “healthy skepticism” that everyone should have.
On pages 15-20 of the paper written by Christian philosopher Thomas Talbott, “The Outsider Test for Faith: How Serious a Challenge Is It?,” he critiques the idea of an outsider. Let me begin with pages 15-16.
First let me say that whenever it comes to defending any argument critics will offer objections that the author may not have initially considered. This comes as no surprise since authors cannot usually anticipate everything. Even if they can anticipate additional objections they cannot say everything they know in an initial article or chapter. It’s an ongoing dialogue of learning as we go, in making the best case in light of new objections, in responding to these additional objections, and in refining or revising the argument in light of them. That’s why many articles in the journals end up being made into whole books. It looks as if that will happen with my OTF someday too.
Well, the book has been printed and is being shipped out anyway. Order it now. While you're at it tell your "peeps" and/or get the other books below. This is a good time to do it since if you buy two or more the shipping is free. *ahem*
Craig agrees with and "wholeheartedly endorses the bizarre...conclusion that the universe had a beginning and yet there was no time at which the universe did not exist.” What is this delightful brainteaser?
On pages 15-20 of Christian philosopher Thomas Talbott’s “The Outsider Test for Faith: How Serious a Challenge Is It?,” he critiques the idea of an outsider.
All religions have the same faith-based foundation. When faith is a foundation anything can be believed. --John W. Loftus
I can't believe how many pages you can read for free when looking inside the book, but it's now available for preview. The price on Amazon is amazing: $13 for a $21 book. Buy two of them (one for a Christian friend) and the shipping is free. ;-) Or you can buy one of my other ones with it instead:
Watch out now boys! Get ready for this smack-down:
This is funny but what I think:
Let's try this one more time shall we? This time in short numbered points for the reading impaired:
As an atheist I often quote from the Jehovah's Witness New Testament. Why? Because their translators are not effected by certain doctrines like Trinity. They rely on the most likely version of the Greek text under consideration. Most believers look at John 1:1-4 to argue for Jesus as God.
This is a response to a previous thread but I think it important enough to post as a main article.
Jesus is portrayed as a sacrificial lamb and a propitiation for sin in the New Testament and Christianity in general. He is seen as a sacrifice that is once and for all. We notice that Christians therefore ceased to practice animal sacrifice. Judaism ceased its sacrifice of animals with the destruction of the Temple since by the time of Jesus it had become the only place allowed for sacrifice. I have not researched these factors but my questions below may point to some of my conjectures.
The idea of trinity was not found in the original manuscripts of the New Testament. The pronouns that refer to the holy spirit were neuter meaning "it" not "He." By the fourth century copies of the Greek started showing some of the pronouns changes from 'it" to the masculine, He. (such as Ephesians 1:14). Even in the Gospel of John the Paraclete (Advocate) is referred to by neuter pronouns and is itself a neuter noun.
It's sad and dangerous that people continue to fall for myths of Christianity. What is worse is the intentional affirmation and legitimating of these myths as absolute truths that are an imposition upon the activities of humankind. In seminary when I was a theological neophyte there was a worse myth. The neo-orthodoxy of World War I evolved into a theology that would make truth claims that the bible
IS a collection of myth and fable as a positive thing.
This debate between William Lane Craig and Keith Parsons isn't getting the hits it should. On YouTube it only has 67 hits. The best audio can be found
here, with part two found
here. Parsons owned Craig. [First Posted 4/9/08]
Consciousness is one of the few remaining gaps in science where theists go looking for evidence of a god. What better place than to look for the soul? With the arrival of Darwin and his theory of evolution, the idea of life as designed by a god became extinct scientifically. Physics has demonstrated that there is not necessarily a need for a prime mover. So it is with the study of consciousness.
I would like to present an atheistic bible study, an observation or interpretation, I believe explains the re-working of the original story of Jesus and John the Baptist by the authors of Matthew and Luke. This is with the understanding that Matthew and Luke use Mark in their compositions. In Mark Jesus is baptized into ( eis) the remission of sins. The preposition “eis” means from out of a state to into a different state or place. This preposition in Mark is redacted (re-worked or edited) by Matthew.
Jesus was an apocalyptic teacher who was seen to perform miracles. He was elevated in one circle of followers to being virgin born. Paul cast him in an ahistorical Hellenistic Savior myth. Another segment of the movement continued as Jewish followers who expected his return but did not believe in the virgin birth or that Jesus was god or divine. The Jewish Christian traditions about Jesus become elevated with the Johannine Hellenistic Logos Christology.
Christology rests upon a mistake. This is a simple statement that could be easily understood by much of the various Christian denominations. As so it means the invalidity of the Christian Faith since it rests upon its own Christology.
Sometimes, we try too hard to get to the greener grass. In the process, we end up in trouble...
Q is a hypothetical that regardless of its actual state of existence explains the nature of the Synoptic Gospels better than a inspirational or infallibility position and harmonization. Higher Criticism has never listened to opinionated claims of those who would twist the normal concepts of history into a pretzel to create a pure absurdity of apologetics, The priority of Mark and Q explain the contradictions and variations in supporting redaction criticism (editing history) as their explanation in contrast to the implausible absurdities of harmonization in order to maintain a belief that is simply an outworn tradition about the canon that is not supported by its nature or fact.
I came to my atheistic position from a belief in scripture not from my present paganism. A fair treatment of the scripture will at least save one from the heresy of orthodoxy. It is the hard core studying of them with an objective and unbiasly fair analysis rather than an a priori apologetic stance and its conclusion that the scripture is inerrant, infallible and/or inspired that allowed me to see the probable and plausible nature of the texts. The ideas of inspiration and infallibility present an improbable and implausible dogmatic position that requires the gymnastics of fantasy and fanciful harmonizations that cause the character Jesus to pop up like a windup jack in the box in repeated scenarios or a redundancy speech and absurdity bordering on Dadaism and surrealism. It is this position that is not a normative understanding of history, reality and science that has been a fragmentation from the real world view to some fantastic world view where the characters in the narrative are no longer function within context but are transported from the meaning of the scriptures to the doctrine of medieval superstition, dogma and absurdity (did I say pure 24 karat unmitigated asininity?).
An old friend of mine, who has sent me spam emails about God and country, just recently told me he has read my books. But he continues sending me spam emails anyway. He has hopes for me. I'm speechless, absolutely speechless. If this isn't a deluded person then no one is. I can recognize a bat blind brainwashed believer when I see one. Why can't he recognize a hardened atheist when he sees one?
The basis of information for the proposition that Jesus is the Christ is suspect. Unlike the mythicist's view of a mythological origins we find a movement from human to legendary. The intentional re-workings of the Gospels by their authors are responses to historical events. The mythological elements are the later work of Paul and those that influenced him attached to the legendary aspects that are reflected in the Gospels. While the Gospels are later in writing than the authentic Pauline Epistles, they have a closer geographic and ethnic origin to Jesus and his followers than Paul and the Hellenistic mythological language.
Thanks to all my regular readers and commenters for making DC what it is. It's rare to achieve what I have attempted. This blog is not one that preaches to the choir. I am not a cheerleader for anything atheist. There are too many sites that do that in an endless cycle of seeing who can best stick it to Christians. And, as you would guess, I'm no cheerleader for Christianity either, to say the least. ;-) But both sides visit here to discuss the ideas that separate us, including SBL's Bibliobloggers, where DC ranks above 5th place every month (out of 500+ sites). Yes, I get attacked at times from both sides in my attempt to reach out to Christians. But I am passionate to change the religious landscape in ways I think are best given my talents. Cheers.
I hope the effort was worth it. Let me know as you get your copy. It'll surely be hotly contested on Amazon and elsewhere. The reaction should prove to be intense. Stay tuned.
my previous book. From the planning stage to the final production TEC took a year and nine months of hard work. It is much easier to grab already published material and place it in a book than in getting new essays from scholars. The chapters in both books are new essays. They both took a lot of work. 
(New York: Riverhead Books, 2008), p. xviii]. We have faith, he opines, whenever we accept something that is “unprovable,” and all of us “have fundamental, unprovable faith commitments that we think are superior to those of others.” [Ibid., p. 20]. So he argues skeptics likewise “must doubt your doubts.” [Ibid., p. xix]. 
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