The Secular Frontier

THE PASSION NARRATIVES AND THE CASE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS Was Jesus crucified in Jerusalem about 30 CE? Did Jesus die on the cross on a Friday afternoon? Was his body placed into a stone tomb on Friday evening, after his crucifixion? Was his tomb found to be empty early on Sunday morning? Did a living, walking, talking, physically embodied Jesus meet with his disciples in Jerusalem on Sunday evening, a little more than 48 hours after his crucifixion? Did Jesus rise from the dead? According to Christian apologists, and to most Evangelical Christian believers, Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem about 30 CE; he died on the cross on Friday afternoon. His body was placed into a stone tomb on Friday evening, after the crucifixion; the tomb was found to be empty early on that Sunday morning, and a living, walking, talking, physically embodied Jesus met with his disciples in Jerusalem on Sunday evening, a little more than 48 hours after his crucifixion. They conclude that Jesus did actually rise from the ... Read Article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K3Q-OMXuRs&t Christian communities face growing political divide as religious affiliation declines. More than a quarter of Americans now claim no religious affiliation, a finding from the Pew Research Center. That makes the so-called “nones” the largest bloc of Americans. For white Christians, the once-dominant group by far, there’s also been a growing political divide within communities as faith has receded. ... Read Article

Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrU5X5iep4Q ... Read Article

ONE REASON why Donald Trump clearly lost the debate with Joe Biden, is that Trump lost on the single most important issue of the whole debate: WHO WAS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES? Biden claimed that Trump was the worst president that we have ever had, and Biden made a strong case for this strong claim. See my previous post "Trump's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" for the details on that issue. After watching the debate, NOBODY should vote for Trump, simply because in that debate Biden showed that Trump was the worst president that our country has ever had. This one single very important point is sufficient reason by itself to conclude that Trump LOST the debate. Today, I will give a SECOND REASON why Donald Trump CLEARLY LOST the debate with Joe Biden: ALMOST EVERYTHING DONALD TRUMP SAID ABOUT IMMIGRATION WAS EITHER A LIE OR WAS BULLSHIT. It is clear that Donald Trump believes (or pretends to believe) that one of the most important issues we face is ... Read Article

Here is the presentation: https://www.youtube.com/live/gv4bh0qVYgc Here are the corresponding peer reviewed articles (top two on list) ... Read Article

We used to have Al Franken to point out many of the lies of the BIG FAT IDIOTS on the right (e.g. Rush Limbaugh) and the of the LYING LIARS (e.g. Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and more recently the snivelling racist shithead Tucker Carlson). Franken is still pointing out the lying liars, but for the TRUCKLOAD OF LIES and bullshit that came out of Trump's mouth during the Presidential debate on Thursday, we should turn to major fact-checkers to find out what specific lies, exaggerations, falsehoods, and bullshit Trump spewed out in the debate: FactCheck.org: https://www.factcheck.org/2024/06/factchecking-the-biden-trump-debate/ The Washington Post: "Trump made dozens of false claims, many of them his favorites. Biden made a few." https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/28/fact-check-presidential-debate/ The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/27/us/biden-trump-debate-fact-check The Associated Press: https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-misinformation ... Read Article

All Oklahoma schools are now required to incorporate the Bible and the Ten Commandments in their curriculum, the state's superintendent announced. The Oklahoma memorandum follows a law in Louisiana passed June 19, that requires all public classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. A group of Louisiana parents and civil rights organizations are suing the state over the new law, contending the legislation violates both US Supreme Court precedent and the First Amendment. See the article HERE ... Read Article

A group of nine Louisiana families with children in public schools filed suit in federal court today to block HB 71, a new state law requiring all public elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. In their complaint filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, the plaintiffs, who are Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist and nonreligious, assert that the newly enacted statute violates longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent and the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. More than 40 years ago, in Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court overturned a similar state law, holding that the separation of church and state bars public schools from posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms. No other state requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools. The plaintiffs in Roake v. Brumley are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, Americans United ... Read Article

It is generally believed that religion makes people morally good, or that religion is a significant factor in making religious people morally better than non-religious people. Christians generally believe that the Christian religion makes Christians morally better than non-religious people. But there is a good deal of evidence that casts doubt on these widely held beliefs. One piece of evidence is this: DIVORCE RATES. Divorce is an important moral issue, at least from a Christian point of view. There are a few reasons for thinking divorce is a moral issue. First, marriage, at least for Christians, involves promises or vows. Keeping promises or vows or commitments is a part of being a morally good person. Second, one of the Ten Commandments prohibits people from committing adultery (at least that is how most Christians understand the Ten Commandments), so Christians and Jews view adultery as a serious moral evil. Cheating or sexual infidelity is a major cause or reason for divorce. Third, because c ... Read Article

Growing up in the fundamentalist evangelical flock I believed my Pentecostal pastor when he told me God had revealed to him that I, a scrawny little schoolgirl who came to church because I had nothing better to do, possessed the gift of divine healing. I placed my little hands with their nervously bitten nails and WWJD beaded bracelets on many a searching and desperate soul and imagined the incredible power of Jesus transmitting from my soul and through my fingers to reach their every complicated spiritual and physical ailment. No one ever jumped out of their wheelchair like they did at the televangelist megachurches on TV, but I didn’t dare doubt that magical healing would eventually take place. If it never did, I knew it was my fault for not having enough faith. I left Christianity behind in my early 20’s, much too far behind to pick it up again even as a crutch after I became disabled in a car accident at age 32. Rendered a complete quadriplegic I often found myself seeking and extending solidar ... Read Article

ABSTRACT: This is Part B of a three-part literary application and defense of Robyn Faith Walsh’s recent (2021) hypothesis that the Gospels are not, as is usually thought, the product of literate spokespersons conveying the oral tradition of their community, but rather are birthed out of networks of elite Greco-Roman-Jewish writers in dialogue with one another, not downtrodden illiterate peasants. For example, what if the empty tomb narrative did not originate in the oral tradition of a Christian community, but in empty tomb apotheosis narratives that the author had read from ancient novels like that of Chariton? As a literary test of a hypothesis, I ask what predictions we can make of the kinds of concepts that we should find in the New Testament on Walsh’s literary elite education model, compared to what we should find if the oral tradition model is correct. I show that Walsh’s approach is certainly plausible and makes good sense of the evidence, such as pervasive intertextual haggadic midrash (Jewish ... Read Article

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Supreme Court rejects challenge to abortion pill mifepristone, allowing drug to stay on the market. CNN—The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s approach to regulating the abortion pill mifepristone with a ruling that will continue to allow the pills to be mailed to patients without an in-person doctor’s visit. The ruling is a significant setback for the anti-abortion movement in what was the first major Supreme Court case on reproductive rights since the court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. See full article here. ... Read Article

MAGA pastor/Trump cultist Mark Burns has advanced to a runoff in South Carolina, putting him one step closer to Congress. Burns has promised that if elected, he'll work to see that those who promote LGBTQ rights are held "accountable for treason." See the Right Wing Watch article HERE ... Read Article

James McGrath published his major trade book on John the Baptist today: The scholarly version comes in October: John of History, Baptist of Faith: The Quest for the Historical Baptizer ... Read Article