The Secular Frontier

Last time, I thought a bit about mediumship, and how the observational evidence doesn't lead us to a supernatural spirit-world medium hypothesis rather than a "mundane" supernatural psychic mind reading that does not involve undead spirits communicating with the medium. This time, I'd like to think a little about how Sudduth shows the natural explanation is preferable to the supernatural one. Sudduth frames the survivalist position in this way: Parapsychologists and survivalists have presented arguments to show that, with respect to mediumship, the fraud and chance hypotheses are improbable. Unfortunately, the form of argument on which they have relied to show this is bogus ... One salient point raised by Broad, Royall, and Sober is that hypotheses must be tested against an alternative ... In the case of mediumship, the survivalist needs to show that the survival hypothesis confers a greater probability on the observational evidence than does the fraud hypothesis. The observations will then favor s ... Read Article

(Theatrical poster for a mind reading performance, 1900 wiki) In this essay Sudduth covers a lot of ground, but mainly considers Keith Augustine’s critique of recent attempts to use the example of a well-known medium Mrs. Piper to argue the soul continues to exist after death.  The idea of being a medium is generally someone acting as a conduit for people to communicate with deceased loved ones.  Perhaps the best-known medium in our time is Theresa Caputo.  Here are some short examples of her working on the Drew Barrymore talk show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7SpzWZs3qU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0CzCkwK6BQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quTrURdyLGk The most compelling part of the medium survivalist argument is also its greatest limitation: the confirmation of the person of information the medium shouldn’t know but does.  What can we say about it?  Perhaps the medium is a conduit for the undead, but for the sake of argument one might equal ... Read Article

Previously, I've talked about how Trump is positioning himself that a vote against him is a vote against God. What better way to spend a political rally than as Christian Worship time, lol? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RJ86JGoX05o For anyone not familiar with evangelical worship practices, Noem is raising her hand filled with the Spirit. ... Read Article

According to the George Washington University website, Jonathan Turley is: ...a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. Despite this, Turley has written an extremely misleading and deceptive editorial piece for The Hill, called “With fact-checks like these, how does truth stand a chance?” Although it is possible that Turley is just stupid or ignorant about the issues he discusses in the editorial, and that the misleading and deceptive ideas in his editorial are the result of his stupidity or ignorance, it is much more likely that the falsehoods and deception in his editorial are intentional, and that the editorial displays serious dishonesty and untruthfulness by Turley. Of course, lawyers who LIE for Donald Trump are nothing new (John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, Sidney Powell, Michael Cohen, and Alan Dershowitz come to mind). Perhaps Jonathan Turley has deci ... Read Article

Check out the trailer for our new Kids chapter book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GLemL5pm3g ... Read Article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxiaZEhS3g8 There is a really interesting thing happening in politics right now. Politicians have adopted a lawyer schema where they defend their side at the expense of the truth. And, the people have responded accordingly. For the above example, liberal voters say Vance is avoiding the question, whereas conservative voters say Vance flipped the script questioning the interviewer. ... Read Article

An editorial by legal scholar Jonathan Turley was published in The Hill recently, in which Turley spewed LIES in support of one of Donald Trump's BIG LIES: The Justice Department’s released survey found that, under the Biden administration, there has been a significant increase in crime. Violent crime was up 37 percent from 2020 to 2023, rape is up 42 percent, robbery is up 63 percent... It's bad enough when the con artist and SOCIOPATH Donald Trump spews LIES like this, but for a legal scholar to engage in such LYING (or idiocy?) is intolerable, so I gave Professor Turley a piece of my mind in an email this evening: ========================== Jonathan Turley, According to the George Washington University website, you are: a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. I don't understand how a legal scholar can FAIL to understand basic crime statistics, but you apparen ... Read Article

Washington (CNN) -Former President Donald Trump is littering his public remarks with fictional stories. [...] Elections in California At a September press conference in California, Trump claimed that “if I ran with an honest vote counter in California I would win California, but the votes are not counted honestly.” He had delivered an even more colorful version of the claim in an interview in late August, saying, “If Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, okay?” More rubbish. The votes are counted honestly in California, as they are in every other state; Trump loses California because it is an overwhelmingly Democratic state that has not chosen a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. He lost the state in 2020, fair and square, by more five million votes and more than 29 percentage points. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/19/politics/fact-check-donald-trump-fictional-stories The logic here is clear. Democrats usually vote for Demo ... Read Article

Washington (CNN) —  Former President Donald Trump is littering his public remarks with fictional stories. This isn’t run-of-the-mill political spin, the kind of statistic-twisting and accomplishment-exaggerating that political candidates of all stripes engage in. Rather, the Republican presidential nominee is telling colorful lies that are completely untethered to reality. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/19/politics/fact-check-donald-trump-fictional-stories Opinions of Roe v. Wade Facing heavy criticism from Harris and others for appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned the Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision in 2022, Trump concocted a tale that this unpopular decision fulfilled the wishes of “everybody” – including “every Democrat.” “Every Democrat, every Republican, everybody wanted Roe v. Wade terminated and brought back to the states,” Trump said on Fox News in late August. This is not even remotely accurate. R ... Read Article

Last time I said: One popular idea on the internet is Jesus started out as a vague dying/rising savior myth who was later placed in historical fictions/gospels (Euhemerized). How do New Testament specialists teaching New Testament at accredited Secular universities respond to this? The key point is that the dying/rising salvation theme of the Jesus tale is a later development, and so is not at our earliest level of the Jesus salvation message. Against Christ-mythicism, Prof Bart Ehrman notes for Paul righteousness came through the cross/resurrection, that if it came through the law Chris died for nothing (Gal 2:21). Mark wrote a Paul-inspired propaganda document/gospel (euaggelion, as per the Augustus use of the term) selling Jesus’ cross and resurrection as the way to salvation like Paul argued, and yet contrarily Mark said salvation also came through repentance and the Kingdom (Mark 1:14-15), and following the law and giving everything to the poor (Mark 10:17-22). Mark unwittingly or deliberately (wh ... Read Article

Washington (CNN) —  Former President Donald Trump is littering his public remarks with fictional stories. This isn’t run-of-the-mill political spin, the kind of statistic-twisting and accomplishment-exaggerating that political candidates of all stripes engage in. Rather, the Republican presidential nominee is telling colorful lies that are completely untethered to reality. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/19/politics/fact-check-donald-trump-fictional-stories Harris’ primary performance Trump has repeatedly claimed during the last month that Harris was so unpopular when she previously ran for the presidency, in 2019, that she was the very first candidate to drop out of the crowded Democratic primary. “She was one of 22 people that ran. She was the first one to quit,” he said at a Pennsylvania rally in late August. Not even close. In fact, 13 other Democratic candidates dropped out of the race before Harris did – including the sitting&nbs ... Read Article

One popular idea on the internet is Jesus started out as a vague dying/rising savior myth that was later placed in historical stories (Euhemerized). How do New Testament specialists teaching New Testament at accredited Secular universities respond to this? Against mythicism, Prof Bart Ehrman notes for Paul righteousness came through the cross/resurrection, that if it came through the law Chris died for nothing (Gal 2:21). Mark wrote a propaganda document (euaggelion) selling Jesus’ cross and resurrection as the way to salvation, and yet contrarily said salvation also came through repentance and the Kingdom (Mark 1:14-15), and following the law and giving everything to the poor (Mark 10:17-22). Mark unwittingly incorporated material about the historical Jesus that contradicted his Pauline bias. Popular Christ Mythicists (Earl Doherty; Robert M Price, Thomas Brodie; Richard Carrier) ... Read Article

In Chapter 8 of their Handbook of Christian Apologetics (hereafter: HCA), Christian philosophers Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli make a case for the resurrection of Jesus, and they claim to PROVE that Jesus rose from the dead. Here is a summary of their case: 1. IF Kreeft and Tacelli refuted the four alternative (skeptical) theories, THEN Kreeft and Tacelli have proved that the Christian Theory of the resurrection of Jesus is true. 2. Kreeft and Tacelli refuted (in Chapter 8 of HCA) the four alternative (skeptical) theories. THEREFORE: 3. Kreeft and Tacelli have proved that the Christian Theory of the resurrection of Jesus is true. In a recent post about this case for the resurrection of Jesus, I argued that there was an obvious reason showing that premise (1) is FALSE, and thus that this case FAILS. The obvious reason that premise (1) is FALSE is that other Christian philosophers and apologists criticize at least seven other skeptical theories besides the four skep ... Read Article

In Chapter 8 of their Handbook of Christian Apologetics (hereafter: HCA), Christian philosophers Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli make a case for the resurrection of Jesus, and they claim to PROVE that Jesus rose from the dead. Here is a summary of their case: 1. IF Kreeft and Tacelli refuted the four alternative (skeptical) theories, THEN Kreeft and Tacelli have proved that the Christian Theory of the resurrection of Jesus is true. 2. Kreeft and Tacelli refuted (in Chapter 8 of HCA) the four alternative (skeptical) theories. THEREFORE: 3. Kreeft and Tacelli have proved that the Christian Theory of the resurrection of Jesus is true. This argument FAILS for two simple reasons: premise (1) is FALSE, and premise (2) is FALSE. So, their argument is UNSOUND because it is based on false premises. In this post, I will only discuss premise (1) and one obvious reason why it is false. ONE OBVIOUS REASON WHY PREMISE (1) IS FALSE There are various reasons that show premise (1 ... Read Article

Washington (CNN) —  Former President Donald Trump is littering his public remarks with fictional stories. This isn’t run-of-the-mill political spin, the kind of statistic-twisting and accomplishment-exaggerating that political candidates of all stripes engage in. Rather, the Republican presidential nominee is telling colorful lies that are completely untethered to reality. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/19/politics/fact-check-donald-trump-fictional-stories Harris’ identity Trump claimed at a convention of Black journalists in late July that Harris used to “only” promote her Indian heritage, then “all of a sudden” made a “turn” and “became a Black person.” Defending the claim, Trump reiterated at the September debate that Harris had “put out” at some point that “she was not Black.” None of that is true. Harris – who was raised in a Black community and graduated from a historically Black university – has embra ... Read Article