Do Atheists Concede the Ground of Death Too Easily? A Reply to Greta Christina
According to Greta Christina, atheists concede the ground of death too easily. She quotes or paraphrases the following sentiment. “Sure, atheism may have better arguments and evidence. But religion is always to going to win on the death question. A secular philosophy of death will never comfort people the way religion does.” In response, she … Do Atheists Concede the Ground of Death Too Easily? A Reply to Greta Christina
Reppert’s Clarification on KKK Rallies vs. the Reason Rally
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2012/05/by-way-of-clarification-atheism-and.html
Are Reason Rallies Analogous to KKK Rallies?
Victor Reppert links to an article at the Catholic League website entitled, “Atheist Rally Draws Haters.” Reppert writes: OK, as Ricky Ricardo would say, splain. Explain to me the difference between this and a KKK rally, other than the fact that, primarily, Christians were the targets, as opposed to Blacks and Jews. Because I have … Are Reason Rallies Analogous to KKK Rallies?
Checklist: Evaluating Claims about Jesus – Part 6
This post will briefly discuss the two final tests of “eyewitness evidence” (or rather, tests of the historical reliability and trustworthiness of the Gospel accounts) from The Case for Christ (CFC) by Lee Strobel. 7. THE CORROBORATION TEST I introduced this next test by asking Blomberg, “When the gospels mention people, places, and events, do … Checklist: Evaluating Claims about Jesus – Part 6
Compatibilism
I’m fortunate to often run into students whose interests in physics go beyond what they encounter in class, and who might even develop their interests in philosophical directions. Anyway, one of my previous students has apparently been taking the ambitions of physics to describe everything very seriously, and has been worrying about the classic free … Compatibilism
Checklist: Evaluating Claims about Jesus – Part 5
In the Chapter 2 of The Case for Christ (hereafter CFC), Lee Stobel puts forward eight tests for determining the credibility and reliability of the Gospels. I briefly discussed four of those tests in Part 3 of this series. In this post I briefly discuss two more of the tests.5. THE BIAS TESTThis test analyzes … Checklist: Evaluating Claims about Jesus – Part 5
Is Bayes’s Theorem Irrelevant to History?
On his blog, R. Joseph Hoffmann published an essay by Stephanie Louise Fisher which, among other things, argues that Bayes’s theorem (hereafter, BT) is irrelevant to historical scholarship. In her words, BT is “completely inappropriate for, and unrelated to historical occurrence and therefore irrelevant for application to historical texts.” Really? Whenever a historian argues that such-and-such an … Is Bayes’s Theorem Irrelevant to History?
The Unending Story
This was in the Manchester Guardian last February: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/12/new-anti-science-assault-us-schools Like movie monsters who keep getting killed but keep coming back for more (and more tedious) sequels, anti-science activism keeps rising from the crypt. No surprise here. This is truly the unending story. What does surprise me a bit is that it apparently took so long … The Unending Story
Checklist: Evaluating Claims about Jesus – Part 4
A reader comment (by ‘downtown dave’) on Part 3 of this series suggests that I take a look at Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ (hereafter: CFC). I don’t find Strobel’s case to be persuasive, but the criteria for evaluation of the Gospels that he puts forward in Chapter 2 (“Testing the Eyewitness Evidence” ) … Checklist: Evaluating Claims about Jesus – Part 4
Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus – Part 23
In Joseph “Rick” Reinckens’s webpage A Lawyer Examines the Swoon Theory we get a short snippet from Origen that allegedly confirms a Roman practice of stabbing victims of crucifixion with a spear: In his Commentary on Matthew, Origen, one of the early Church Fathers, says the lance thrust to Jesus was administered “according to Roman custom, below … Argument Against the Resurrection of Jesus – Part 23