Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, August 10, 2012,
In :
Religion
To coincide with the recent release of my book The Nativity: A Critical Examination, I wrote a couple of posts concerning issues with the nativity accounts in Luke and Matthew on the Debunking Christianity blog. One Christian commentator, Vincent, made replies to many of my points, all of which I rebutted. There was one point on which he pushed and that was a thesis by Christian physicist Frank Tipler that sets out to defend the Star of Bethlehem from a naturalistic standpoint. Tipler hypoth...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, August 6, 2012,
In :
Religion
I'm loving the Olympics, I really am. I have even been to see some women's volleyball and it was great. It has all been so well organised (and in so being, it's great to put one up Mitt Romney for his silly comments). However, the good ole sporting problem raises its theological head. Who does God support?
I was watching a boxing match which tied. This means that the judges' individual scores were tied so it goes down to who the judges selected in their intuitive press of a button. This the...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, July 22, 2012,
In :
Religion
Recently, I posted a piece on biblical contradictions and how Christians harness cognitive dissonance to help them find desperate ways in which to defend ideas of inerrancy. I looked to show that they use a circular approach without realising it:
1) The Bible never makes contradictions
2) All alleged contradictions can be harmonised
3) Since the Bible never makes contradictions, all harmonisations are inherently more probable than the idea that there are contradictions
4) All harmonisations ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, July 13, 2012,
In :
Religion
Recently, elsewhere, I have been discussing the contradictions of the Bible. Many are fairly irrelevant in the scheme of things and don’t really invalidate the core claims of the Bible, only the claims of inerrancy. What it does show, however, is the rationalisation process of the average Christian. Not only is the process hilarious to watch, but the answers given vary so widely amongst defenders of inerrancy (and even amongst liberal defenders who instinctively try to protect the Bible's ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, July 4, 2012,
In :
Religion
This superb essay was linked to me by Andreas on another thread. I/t is 44 years old now and was written by Antony Flew in his prime. It is as relevant today as it ever was:
Theology and Falsification
The following excerpt was published in Reason and Responsibility (1968).
by Antony Flew
et us begin with a parable. It is a parable developed from a tale told by John Wisdom in his haunting and revolutionary article "Gods."[1] Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jun...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, July 4, 2012,
In :
Religion
Here is a video summing up and previous blog post of mine about theists using evidence at the opposite ends of the spectrum to conclude that God exists.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, June 23, 2012,
In :
Religion
Here is a good post from another blog which I think is worth reposting. I think people forget to think of the Gospel writers as real people actually sitting down and logistically trying to create something so demanding:
It always puzzles me at the idea that someone might assume one person, be he named Matthew or Sam, just sat down one day and decided to write a book called the Gospel according to Matthew from memory or from his own notes. Is this how literary scholars think things got writ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, June 21, 2012,
In :
Religion
Whilst some of you may think Christmas has come early, the reality is that I have a new book out which deals with the historicity of the nativity accounts found in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. As if all the other arguments aren’t enough, there’s nothing like topping it all off with a healthy dose of critical historical analysis.
So the book is called The Nativity: A Critical Examination and the more involved in writing and researching it I became, the more amazed I was that anyone a...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, June 10, 2012,
In :
Religion
I would like to investigate in
this post the opportunism of the theist. I have been involved in many
conversations and debates, and have certainly seen many debates between
proponents of most corners of the divides, and there is something which does
annoy me. Theists, it seems, like to have their cake and eat it. They seem to
enjoy the ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ ethos. There are many arguments where
the theist will use the evidence available, in this here world, to support
their case. ...
Catholic, Born-Again, Reformed, Jew, Muslim, Shiite,
Sunni, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist . . . . Religions give people labels. The
downside can be tribalism, an assumption that insiders are better than
outsiders, that they merit more compassion, integrity and generosity or even
that violence toward “infidels” is acceptable. But the upside is that religious
or spiritual labels offer a way of defining ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, May 31, 2012,
In :
Religion
In this post, I
am going to look at the resurrection account given by Matthew, in particular
his addition found in no other Gospel account, that there were guards stationed
at the tomb.
According to
Matthew, the chief priests were worried that the disciples might steal Jesus’
body to fake a resurrection, so they went to Pilate and got permission to post
a guard on the tomb. When Jesus rose from the dead, the guards reported it to
the priests, and the priests bribed them to claim that...
Posted by B__e on Thursday, May 24, 2012,
In :
Religion
Here is a post from an ex-Christian called B__e who has been ruminating on this for a whiile. See what you think:
Ten Commandments or Ten
Suggestions?
By B__e
I have
sometimes heard that the Bible has the Ten Commandments and not the “Ten
Suggestions.” I’m not so sure that
Yahweh thinks so based on the Scriptures themselves, since He appears to break
or flout them all. You be the judge…
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, May 21, 2012,
In :
Religion
Author John W Loftus has asked me to be a guest poster over at Debunking Christianity. At 130,000 hits+ a month, this is a great privilege and one about which I am very grateful. Thanks to John for the invitation. Hope to see you there!
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, May 20, 2012,
In :
Religion
Why, indeed, do normal people believe ridiculous things? We have heard much from John Loftus about the OTF – the Outsider Test for Faith – which essentially illustrates that religion is a (geographical) accident of birth. It claims that if believers used the same critical powers they use to assess, and dismiss, other religions and their claims, then they are obliged to turn those critical faculties on their own. If they did, John would claim, then they would surely end up dismissing the c...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, May 19, 2012,
In :
Religion
OCKHAM’S RAZOR AND CHRISTIANITY
Here is a definition of Ockham’s Razor:
Occam's Razor: the principle that entities should not be
multiplied needlessly; the simplest of two competing theories is to be preferred.
This can often be a very useful principle in comparing
competing theories which seek to explain the same phenomena. I will like to
apply this theory to everything we know and see whether Christianity or atheism
is a more attractive theory.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, May 17, 2012,
In :
Religion
Exclusivism, as I understand it, is merely accepting one
belief in denying other similar claims. Which can surely be boiled down to
accepting a claim and denying other claims.
We all do this, surely.
I see people as having two choices for living in a world of
evidence.
1) being Pyrrhonian Skeptics
2) being able to make some kind of truth claims (beliefs)
For those who don't know Pyrrhonian Skepticism:
Whereas academic skepticism, with Carneades as its most
famous adherent, cla...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, May 3, 2012,
In :
Religion
Highly Religious People Are Less Motivated by Compassion Than Are Non-Believers
ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2012) — "Love thy neighbor" is preached from many a pulpit. But new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that the highly religious are less motivated by compassion when helping a stranger than are atheists, agnostics and less religious people.
Having looked at biblical issues concerning the position of
deeming h/s morally wrong, let us now look at what makes people h/s and whether
it is fair for an all-loving god to judge them.
Historically, h/s has been seen as a behavioural choice.
However, over recent years, more and more research has been carried out into
the causality of h/s.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 30, 2012,
In :
Religion
This is an excellent and informative post from Harry McCall on DC which i thought was interesting enough to post here:
This is the reply I got from the foremost scholar on
Josephus today (apart from Louis Feldman). Steve Mason is editor-in-chief
of EJ Brill’s multi-volume on the works of Josephus:
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, April 27, 2012,
In :
Religion
I am writing a post in reaction
to something about which I was talking with my Christian friend (let’s call him
Colin). We were talking about homosexuality and his approach to it given his
Christian background. Some points were interesting and some I fundamentally
disagreed with. Here are his views:
As according to the Bible, homosexuality is wrong.
This morality is grounded in God.
He is not homophobic and detests that label as it
automatically halts any further informed discu...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, April 25, 2012,
In :
Religion
Battles have been raging online over the last month or so
with regards to Ehrman's treatment of mythicism in his last book (Did
Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, cobbled together
from his debates, I believe) which was summed up here in his outspoken Huff
Post article:
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 16, 2012,
In :
Religion
I have seen the opening statements of both. I almost burst
out laughing at the poor poor tack taken by Darrel. Firstly, he sets out
deconstructing Avalos' epistemology and morality. This is both a red herring
and a shifting of the burden of proof. It matters not one jot, because that is
not the focus of the debate. The debate is "Is the bible a source of
absolute moral rules for today?" I can only see that Darrel should make a
defensive stance. Avalos could have come out and said "I derive my...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, April 12, 2012,
In :
Religion
This is a superb video which I have seen a few times. There is a lot of info in it, and it gathers momentum as it goes on. The case Carrier builds up for internal evidence as to the existence of Jesus, or lack thereof, is fantastic. I am not a mythicist: I am agnostic. But he does build a superb case.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 9, 2012,
In :
Religion
This is an essay submitted by Sarah Cook, an undergraduate student reading Religious and Theological Studies at Cardiff University. It is a good, concise synopsis on whether Paul defends slavery or doesn't; and whether he does so from a position of historical and cultural context or from his own understanding of the morality of slavery.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, April 7, 2012,
In :
Religion
Courtesy of richarddawkins.net:
The Lord’s Army Comes to America’s Public Schools
By KATHERINE STEWART - RICHARDDAWKINS.NET Added: Wednesday, 14 March 2012 at 3:57 PM - An RDFRS Original
“Now that you know the truth, who will you share this with?” asked Ian’s fourth-grade teacher. The setting was a March 2012 meeting of the Good News Club in a Pasadena, California public elementary school. Good News Clubs are afterschool “Bible study” programs with a fundamentalist agenda that are ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 2, 2012,
In :
Religion
Burqas are back on the agenda in the UK. This is because there was a
recent furore within the British legal aystem. A Muslim woman was barred from
serving on a jury because she refused to remove her veil. In a controversial
ruling, a judge said she could not sit on an attempted murder trial because her
full face covering (niqab) concealed her expressions.
Knowing this is controversial, I would like to give my
tuppence worth because I am against the wearing of such veils and I will tell
yo...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, March 16, 2012,
In :
Religion
Can religion be destroyed?
I was involved in a little discussion over at Advocatus
Atheist the other day with regards to whether a secular and sceptical approach
can spell the end of religion. I found this to be interesting. Even if the
evidence 9does it not already) overwhelmingly ruled in favour of the disbelief
in a personal god, would religion still tenuously hang on to the threads of
desperate hope or ritualistic comforts that humanity seems to endure?
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, March 8, 2012,
In :
Religion
When thinking about subjects like the fine-tuning argument
it becomes apparent that the theist loves to have their cake and eat it. They
thrive off a “heads I win, tails you lose scenario”.
What I mean by this can be exemplified as follows:
In the fine-tuning argument when a sceptic argues:
The universe is more fine-tuned for death than life.
The size of the universe is so unbelievably and
unnecessarily massive that it appears that it is not designed for human life.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, March 2, 2012,
In :
Religion
As a fan of much of Richard Carrier's work, I am looking forward to watching this debate on whether Jesus was the Son of God or a mere apocalyptic prophet.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, February 25, 2012,
In :
Religion
Here are some notes I made some time ago on the Fine-Tuning argument. From memory, some of the ideas came from Richard Carrier in Sense and Goodness Without God. The argument looks like this (wiki):
The fine-tuned Universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different, the Universe would be unl... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, February 18, 2012,
In :
Religion
The existence of a world without God seems to me less absurd
than the presence of a God, existing in all his perfection, creating an
imperfect man in order to make him run the risk of Hell - Armand Salacrou.
I recall the story of the philosopher and the theologian.
The two were engaged in disputation and the theologian used the old quip about
a philosopher resembling a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat
-- which wasn't there. "That may be," said the philosopher: "but
a the...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, February 11, 2012,
In :
Religion
Here is a post aimed at getting some answers out of William Lane Craig about his inner witness of the Holy Spirit. John Loftus at DC would like him to answer dome pertinent questions, as you can see:
Most people know that I defend William Lane Craig against the charge that he is dishonest as an apologist. Among skeptics I am his biggest defender, perhaps the only one. But I have just ask...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, February 7, 2012,
In :
Religion
The faithful must learn to respect those who question their beliefs
Tensions between religion and science will persist unless believers
recognise that skepticism is a hallmark of science
Issues of personal faith can be a source of respectful
debate and discussion. Since faith is often not based on evidence, however, it
is hard to imagine how various deep philosophical or religious disagreements
can be objectively laid to rest. As a result, skeptics like myself struggle to
understand or an...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, January 29, 2012,
In :
Religion
Epistemologically speaking, truth was often seen as being
the product of revelation, whether from God or the Pope. Therefore, empiricism
was frowned upon as a method to arrive at truth and certainly could not trump
revelation.
What was also frowned upon was scientific progress. This
value was seen as poor in comparison to the value of the Gospels and spreading
the good word, and the resulting relationship with God. These value positions
were not antithetical to God, but they likewise did ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, January 28, 2012,
In :
Religion
I have recently been involved in an argument online which is
a very common argument and one which annoys me just a little. It is also an
argument which I have had many times before with Christians. The claim goes
something like this:
“Christianity is responsible for the development of
science.”
The word science can be swopped with hospital, charity,
education and so on. In the case in hand, there were statements such as:
“the essential neccesity of Christianity to the origin...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, January 3, 2012,
In :
Religion
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who
speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel
Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled
on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy
If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it
is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by
circumstances. -Theodore Dreiser, 1941.
I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient and omnipotent
God would have designedly cre...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, January 1, 2012,
In :
Religion
I have decided to compile a list of my favourite atheistic /
agnostic / philosophical songs. There are many on other lists which I do not
know and feel I would like to, but here is my definitive list. I have made a
comment with each and maybe copied the odd lyric to explain why it is in the
list. I will also try to list any YouTube links to the songs.
Please add your own selections in the comments below and if
I don’t know them, I am sure to want to check them out.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, December 22, 2011,
In :
Religion
Craig, in the video above, cements the sort of views which I
posted in the previous blog entry. Thanks to GearHead Ed who linked this video
in the last blog post. Watch this video, and read the last blog post, and you
shall see that one can conclude the following about Craig’s views:
1)The
Witness of the Holy Spirit / subjective experience of God trumps every other
type of evidence / proof.
2)As
such, there is no contrary evidence whatsoever that would invalidate a bel...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, December 19, 2011,
In :
Religion
Craig has recently posted a Q&A that beggars belief. I'm not sure I need to explain it - I'll let the man talk for himself:
"This is because the resurrection of Jesus is essential to the truth of Christianity. So if Jesus did not rise from the dead, Christianity would be false. So if the bones of Jesus were discovered, that would entail that he did not rise from the dead and so Christianity would be falsified. ...
"So, yes, if the bones of Jesus were to be found, then he did not rise and Chr... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, December 11, 2011,
In :
Religion
The statistics for miscarriages are notoriously difficult to
assess completely accurately. This is partly due to the fact that many
miscarriages go unreported (those after 6 weeks of gestation, which are known
as spontaneous clinical abortions). However, the greater reason is that early
pregnancy losses – those that happen during the first 6 weeks of pregnancy,
generally tend too happen without the mother even knowing.
So why am I writing about this? Well, because statistically,
it mean...
Most Christians accept that a large part of the bible is a
metaphor, analogy or parable; whatever you call it, a lot is not meant to be
taken literally. In some parts of the gospels, Jesus spells out that he's
telling a parable - e.g. the prodigal son, good Samaritan etc. but in
others we have to hear the priest or minister explain that the story should be
interpreted as a story that teaches us something. One major example is
the story of creation which is only a...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, November 20, 2011,
In :
Religion
Some nice quotes from history to keep you company:
Blind faith is
an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence - anonThe church
says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow
on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church -
Ferdinand MagellanEvery step
which the intelligence of Europe has taken has
been in spite of the clerical party - Victor Hugo
All great truths begin as blasphemies - George Bernard Shaw Religion
is wha...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, November 19, 2011,
In :
Religion
In “Does the New Testament Imitate Homer?”, Dennis MacDonald
seeks to show how Luke / Acts imitates Homer. Luke, he claims very
convincingly, uses mimesis –the copying
/ imitating previous works for a variety of reasons – by imitating the
works of Homer. This then calls into question the factual historicity of the
events accounted.
MacDonald show in the introduction how Luke quite obviously
uses mimesis with regards to the Old Testament. Over to the author:
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, November 15, 2011,
In :
Religion
Here are some notes I made from Tim Callahan's "The Secret origin of the Bible" a few years back. Excuse the note form and any spelling / syntax errors. It's still interesting reading and shows how clearly the account is mythological. Samson makes no sense as a stand alone tale, and has no allegorical or symbolic meaning at all, begging the question as to why it's in the bible at all, if not a story lifted from a nearby culture and adopted to Yahweh.
"As reported by Christianity Today (see here), New Testament scholar Michael Licona has apparently lost both his job as research professor of New Testament at Southern Evangelical Seminary and been ousted as apologetics coordinator for the North America Mission Board (NAMB). Why? In h... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, November 9, 2011,
In :
Religion
Some apologists explain the separate and different details of the passion
narratives by claiming that all the accounts of the passion, particularly the
empty tomb sequences, are harmonisable – ie that all the witnesses were at the
empty tomb, that all the discrepancies of the gospels were actual individual
events, not versions of the same event?
Reading around this, this is a classic situation of conservative vs
liberal. Liberals are not bound to
interpret the evidence charitably, and can...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, November 6, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have an analogy which I hope will illustrate why at least
a lot of examples of alleged successful prayer or interventions of God take
place.
Yesterday I was pumping up the tyres to my twins’ buggy. I
have an old bicycle pump which I bought probably seven years ago. I bought it
for £3 – peanuts. This pump has been very hard working – two bicycles and a
buggy at regular intervals (the buggy particularly often needing pumping up).
The pump has worked tirelessly (pun intended).
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, October 28, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have just listened to Ray Bradley debate William Lane Craig. I heard this several years ago but didn't really pay it close attention. This time round I was quite shocked at how many points Craig evaded, or logical demands from Bradley that he met with the terms "God may" and so on.
Craig squirmed big time when Bradley pressed him on subsets of compossibles. This is a REALLY important point. I will try to set it out here:
Imagine a set of people, call that set A. These are all the people in ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, October 24, 2011,
In :
Religion
Does Morality Depend on God? - P. Wesley Edwards
(updated 20-Aug-2004)
Introduction
I have rarely engaged in a debate with a theist where the issue of morality justification has not come up. The theist’s complaint typically takes the following form.
If there is no God, then why is it wrong to murder and steal? Even if you don't want to murder and steal, on what grounds can you criticize someone who does, since morals must be completely relative and arbitrary to an atheist? Without God there ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, October 20, 2011,
In :
Religion
So, on to the rebuttals. Craig pointed out in several of his
rebuttals that Law has not, and did not seem to want to, critique the
cosmological argument. Craig does have some beef here as Law seemed to want to
debate Craig’s version of God rather than the more fundamental argument over A
God’s existence. Thus in true debate point-scoring, Law would take a hit here.
However, as Law plainly stated, and I think this was a wise move, this would
have broadened the scope too far and wasn’t im...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, October 19, 2011,
In :
Religion
So, on to Law’s opening statements. It’s probably better to
get this from the horse’s mouth - http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/opening-speech-craig-debate.html.
However, I will duly sum up. Law, much to his credit, claimed he was only
interested in defending his position using only one argument, based on the
Evidential Problem of Evil. That being, if God is omnipotent, omniscient and
omnibenevolent, then he is able, knows how and is loving enough to want to do
something about all ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, October 18, 2011,
In :
Religion
Last night, two friends and I went to the Stephen Law vs
William Lane Craig debate at Westminster
where the two philosophers were debating ‘Does God Exist?’ Craig’s Reasonable
Faith tour has been hotly anticipated by Christians and non-Christians alike,
and with the relative unknown of Stephen Law (in debating terms), there was a
feeling of unpredictability thrown in to the usual wager that Craig would win.
The debate was good, though not necessarily for the
straightforward reason o...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, October 18, 2011,
In :
Religion
I was lucky enough to be in Westminster at the Law vs Craig debate on Craig's Reasonable Faith tour. It was a cracking night. I do not have time to review it yet. Suffice to say that it was probably a draw. The format was good and the contributions good. I thought it was well-narrowed down, and Craig did not produce a scatter-gun approach.
A much larger review to follow.
Also, I got to meet both of them, gave Law my book, and asked Craig a question to which he couldn't answer. Great.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, October 16, 2011,
In :
Religion
I am going to see William Lane Craig debate Stephen Law tomorrow in Westminster. I am pretty excited, even though the best one can hope for is some kind of philosophical impasse. Anyway, I have penned a couple of questions which I would love the opportunity to ask. I will try and get my tuppence worth in the Q & A:
Given that God is perfect, this must either be the perfect
creation, or the most perfect created parameters that could achieve the best possible outcome. Since plate tectonic which...
God comes to you and tells you
there are transcendent, unconditional moral oughts. Just imagine that in this
world all the things you ‘ought’ to do, from a moral point of view (a moral
ought), happen to cause unfathomable pain, suffering and injustice and will
land you up in hell where you will experi...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, October 9, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have just listened to Ray Bradley debate William Lane Craig. I heard this several years ago but didn't really pay it close attention. This time round I was quite shocked at how many points Craig evaded, or logical demands from Bradley that he met with the terms "God may" and so on.
Craig squirmed big time when Bradley pressed him on subsets of compossibles. This is a REALLY important point. I will try to set it out here:
Imagine a set of people, call that set A. These are all the people in t...
"So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers t... Continue reading ...
Let us assume the triple properties of the classical approach to God: that he is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. In terms of the classic Problem of Evil argument, if there is too much evil in the world, ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, September 25, 2011,
In :
Religion
I was walking past the newspaper stand in the newsagents and
I saw the headline to the Daily Mail. Now, the Daily Mail is a hate-filled
diatribe of poor and polemical journalism. Its online message boards more so,
with posters who are so right wing, they would be more at home in the Tea
Party.
Anyhow, what was the headline? Well:
BBC turns its back on year of Our Lord: 2,000 years of
Christianity jettisoned for politically correct 'Common Era'
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, September 1, 2011,
In :
Religion
I think this was originally Carrier:
When Mark says the Roman
governor Pontius Pilate had a custom of releasing a prisoner on the annual
holiday and the Jews cried for Barabbas, and to crucify Jesus in his place
(Mark 15:6-15), what we have is surely a myth and not fact.No Roman magistrate (least of all the
infamously ruthless Pilate), would let a murderous rebel go free, and no such
Roman ceremony is attested as ever having existed.But the ceremony so obviously emulates the
Jewish ritual ...
Religions tell you that you must
have faith because there is no other reason for believing! One does not need
faith where enough evidence exists. I don’t need faith that gravity will
suddenly give way because according to all my perceived observations and
experiences- gravity has never failed me or anyone else before!
Listen believers.....If there
really is a god, and there really is some ultimate truth that we humans must
know for the sake of our eternal souls, ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, August 15, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have always maintained that the
Flood myth in the bible is dependent upon the earlier Mesopotamian Gilgamesh as
a source. Tablet XI (http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab11.htm)
shows clearly that the two stories are so similar as to be beyond chance. This explicitly
illustrates how the biblical narrative cannot, in any realistic sense, be
anything like the truth. This quote from Cyrus Gordon sums it up (Cyrus H.
Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg, The Bible and the Ancie...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, August 6, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have been wondering recently,
ever since writing an essay on the meaning of life, how eternity fits in with
happiness and the meaning of life. This is because death is often seen by
philosophers as necessary to make sense of life, to give purpose to life since
we have only finite time to exist. As such, we are forced to make the most of
life and are unable to suffer the lethality of eternal boredom. Eternity
promotes boredom, and as philosophers such as Schopenhauer declare, boredom is
leth...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, July 31, 2011,
In :
Religion
The Jews definitely thought Yahweh was one god amongst many,
and an inferior one at that. I~ have already touched on this in the forum, but
it has now been lost.
In Deut 32:7-9 we have evidence that Yahweh was one of many
gods.
"Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of all
generations. (O)Ask your father, and he will inform
you,
Your elders, and they
will tell you. 8"(P)When the Most High gave the nations
their inheritance,
When He separ...
Below I've put together all thirty theses (so far) that most Christians agree on and why they are all improbable:
1) There must be a God who is a simple being yet made up of three inexplicable persons existing forever outside of time without a beginning, who therefore never learned anything new, never took a risk, never made a decision, never disagreed within the Godhead, and never had a prior moment to ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, July 8, 2011,
In :
Religion
When debating morality and ethics with Christian theists,
scorn is often poured on secular ethicists who adhere to moral disciplines that
are not grounded in God. Usually, these moral approaches are consequentialist
in nature. In other words, moral actions are defined by the consequences they
deliver as opposed to the intrinsic morality of the action itself. The ends
justify the means. As an example, such an approach might well be
utilitarianism. Though this appears in many guises (for exampl...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, June 19, 2011,
In :
Religion
Here is a criticism about God’s omniscience and omnipotence
based upon a point made by John D. barrow in Impossibility, drawing on the work of cognitive scientists Donald
Mackay. To put it into simple terms, it might be easier to state it as follows:
It has long been understood that with God’s omniscience, he
cannot be contrary to his own predictions. For example, if you were claimed as
being omniscient and omnipotent and you predicted beforehand that you would
make yourself spaghetti...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, June 13, 2011,
In :
Religion
Theists, the world over, claim that God is omniscient. However, this is not an easy claim to make for a whole host of reasons, one of which is worth looking into here. I want to look at the idea that in many instances, you cannot know that you don’t know something. If there is a situation where you cannot know something, then if it is claimed that you are omniscient, this would invalidate that claim.
For example, there could conceivably be something that God does not know. Conceivably, p...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, June 4, 2011,
In :
Religion
In the same discussion as the previous post was involved in, this comment by papalinton deserves a mention. It is a great summation of religion:
brdeadite99, You say, "... Atheism is not a belief system."
It is just as you say; with atheism there is no doctrine, no 'good' book, no dogma, no catechism, no organised tradition, no institutional body or theological administrative organisation underpinning the ritual and ceremony; there is no procedural observance; no service, no sacrament, no litu... Continue reading ...
I would concur that atheism is not a belief system - I think we have fairly well evinced that notion. However, is atheism not a faith statement? It would seem to me that atheism is as much of a faith statement as theism.
This is why I, although I act and intuitively see myself as an atheist, am logically an agnostic. To move from agnosticism to atheist takes faith. Faith that there is no God. Personally, the belief t...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, May 3, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have been ruminating on what, as far
as I know, might be a new theory (which I have named the Argument from Format)
showing that either God is not omnipotent or does not exist. Bear with me, as
it might need refining, might be easily debunkable, or need changing in some
radical way. It has developed out of my section on souls in the book that I am
just getting published calledFree
Will? An investigation into whether we have free will or whether I was always
going to write this book.In
thi...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, April 16, 2011,
In :
Religion
I was wondering recently about
the issue of God’s foreknowledge. It has long been understood that with God’s
omniscience, he could not be contrary to his own predictions. This means that
if God predicted beforehand that he would make himself a spaghetti bolognaise
for supper on Friday, then when it came to making Friday’s supper, he would
have no choice but to make the spaghetti bolognaise. This is because if he
decided to be contrary to his own prediction and cook, say, pizza, then his...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 4, 2011,
In :
Religion
What annoys me is the fact that by now people should know how to debate Craig. Price and Ahmed pretty much tried the right tack with some success. It sounds close to ad hom, but you need to set your stall out by attacking Craig's methodology. I lie in bed at night sometimes dreaming of how I would debate Craig. This is the definition of sad, I know. He puts himself in an unassailable position in debate terms because he
1) uses a scatter-gun approach that means that you have to answer about 100... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, March 31, 2011,
In :
Religion
I think one of the many problems that Christianity faces is the lack of a systematic theology. There is no coherence across the religion and across the bible. The responsibility of this lies on the lap of an all powerful and system designing god. And this itself is incoherent with such a god as defined by Christians.
What I mean by this is a religion that has 32,000 denominations that argue to toss over different aspects of theology, different core beliefs and so on is, to me at least, an obvi... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, March 25, 2011,
In :
Religion
There are some very powerful and
simple arguments to indicate that this universe is far more likely NOT to be
the result of [the Christian] God.
This should be done in terms of explanatory scope:the
hypothesis explains many facts, not just one or two, and why this universe
exists and not some other, why these properties and not others.
And explanatory power:the
hypothesis explains the facts with high probability. Ie, given that explanation
as a fact we would very likely, or even expect...