Reading Time: 11 minutes Back when I was Pentecostal, I found myself debating a pair of Southern Baptist guys. At the time, I believed in speaking in tongues, and I rejected the Trinity. They were deeply concerned that I’d go to hell over this huge deception, so they sought to persuade me I was wrong. I’m sure you’ll be […]
Extraordinary claims
Posted inHistory
What’s More Likely: Snake or Stake?
Reading Time: 3 minutes A recent comment by WCB on a thread today reminded me of the Exodus claim of Moses’ staff: The Staff of Moses is a staff mentioned in the Bible and Quran as a walking stick used by Moses. According to the Book of Exodus in the Bible, the staff (Hebrew: מַטֶּה matteh, translated “rod” in the King James Bible) was used to produce water from a rock, was transformed […]
Posted inArts
Hitchens’s Razor vs Bayes’s Theorem
Reading Time: 7 minutes John W. Loftus has just endorsed my forthcoming book on the Resurrection in the following manner: Hitchens’s Razor, not Bayes’s Theorem, is the proper tool to use against the “absolute baselessness” of the resurrection belief (per David F. Strauss, as quoted in this book). There’s no objective evidence for it. The testimonial evidence is abysmally […]
Posted inReligion
Summit: Claiming Victory Is the Same as Achieving It
Reading Time: 9 minutes Hi and welcome back! Yesterday, we checked out an apologetics outfit called Summit Ministries. They sell apologetics courses to teens and young adults. At the time, we examined their course offerings and pricing, determining them to be just the same old apologetics repackaged for kids today, da yoot. Today, I want to show you how […]
Posted inReligion
The Most Important Christian Claims (Fail Too)
Reading Time: 7 minutes Last time, we talked about the Christians who act all mystified about how their claims could possibly lack credible support. In the end, it came down to them not understanding what claims actually are, much less how to identify one and then adequately support it. Today, I’ll show you why that culturally-ingrained inability has led to the failure of their most important claims of all.
Posted inReligion
The Hypocrisy of TRUE CHRISTIAN™ Employers Matters
Reading Time: 10 minutes A funny-weird, rather than a funny-haha experience provoked today’s post. It sent me on a wild ride through the profoundly-hypocritical world of authoritarian Christian leaders. Today, let me show you what’s so hypocritical about them–and why that hypocrisy matters so much.
Posted inReligion
What Rekindles Belief (In Christianity)
Reading Time: 8 minutes For a few days now, I’ve been talking about the three major methods of persuasion I see Christians using. Today, though, let’s pull back. Those three methods differ dramatically from what might actually work–at least, on someone like me. I’ll show you what might work, and then–more importantly–show you why Christians don’t even bother trying that.
Posted inReligion
Historicity: Testing the Claims of Christianity
Reading Time: 8 minutes We’ll lay out a basic definition of claims and defenses of claims. And we’ll start looking at one major claim within the religion: that it is based on real history. We’ll see how persuasive this claim really is–and see if the evidence stacks up behind it. And then we’ll examine some big problems with the idea of historicity as a claim for the religion’s truthfulness.
Posted inUncategorized
Promises, False and Discovered
Reading Time: 9 minutes Now, you’d think that sensible salespeople would want to avoid making promises they can’t possibly keep. Alas for Christians, these promises are so much a part of their overall sales pitch that they can’t. Join me for a look at false promises, and why they devastate Christian evangelism attempts.
Posted inReligion
Miracle Maxin’ and the Immorality of Miracles.
Reading Time: 12 minutes Christians love to claim that their god works miracles in their lives, and this claim comes from their nearly-universal belief in the possibility of divine miracles. We settled that idea last time. Now we find ourselves moving inexorably toward the second and third steps of our pushback: If miracles really did happen, and could be demonstrated to have come only from the Christian god, Christians would still not be any closer to establishing that their god was actually a good divinity who deserved our worship.