Hi and welcome back! Yesterday, we covered the so-called Testimony of Josephus. Many Christians think that Josephus provides PROOF YES PROOF that their historical claims are true. However, we discovered that the entire Testimony was inserted centuries later by a pious Christian fraud. The situation got me thinking. Christians’ dishonesty around their lack of evidence […]
evidence
Posted inScience
Disputing Miracles vs Disputing History (II)
This comment was left on a thread a few weeks ago: John, why dispute these facts and not go right for the miracles? Because, if miracles are possible, if it’s possible to extract water from a stone and part the sea, then it’s possible that Moses’ mother had a magical pitch pit in her back […]
Posted inHistory, Religion
Meet Apollonius of Tyana (1st-Century Fridays #2)
Today, let’s check out this fascinating rival for 1st-century affections — and check out what we can of his writings.
Posted inThe Secular
Do We All Have “Sufficient” Evidence to Believe?
This piece will in some sense be a linguistic piece, and in other senses will have quite a big theological impact. I have been having an ongoing argument over whether or not God is unfair in unequally distributing evidence over time and place in the world, thus giving people unequal opportunity of access to belief […]
Posted inUncategorized
Debating the Unequal Evidence Problem Again (II)
This is a continuation of my debate with Catholic Paul Hoffer concerning the unfairness in God in apportioning various people different evidences and punishing them (or not rewarding them intrinsically or extrinsically) in so doing. What this means is that either people go to heaven/hell on the basis of their belief in God (or belief […]
Posted inUncategorized
Debating the Unequal Evidence Problem Again (Doubting Thomas Revisited)
Some of you may remember the recent spat I had with Dave Armstrong and others concerning Doubting Thomas and the fact that, if that account is true and there is an unequal distribution of evidence, God is unfair. For context, see: The Double Standards Involved with Doubting Thomas Doubting Thomas: A Response to Catholic Dave […]
Posted inReligion
Grading the Real Evidence Christians Offer (With Jessica Walter’s Help)
I can see why they worry at those three bits of pseudo-evidence like activated terriers. What they actually do have, they very logically never want to discuss with non-believers. Today, let me show you the real evidence Christians actually have — and how that works out for them.
Posted inReligion
Grading Evangelists’ Evidence (With Jessica Walter GIFs)
Hi and welcome back! The never-ending fever-dream of 2021 continues apace. This past week, the world lost a comic genius when Jessica Walter passed away at 80 years of age. The actress long ago embedded herself in America’s consciousness with her iconic turns in Arrested Development and the animated series Archer — playing a classy, strong-willed, patently-dishonest, beyond-irreverent, […]
Posted inUncategorized
Sinnott-Armstrong, Unfair Distribution of Evidence for God, Belief, & Free Will
To continue the theme of evidence with relation to convincing believers and non-believers to either maintain their belief or take on belief in God, after the recent set of articles concerning Doubting Thomas, let me bring philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong into play with a quote from his book with William Lane Craig entitled God? A Debate between a Christian […]
![By Inside_my_head.jpg: Andrew Mason from London, UK derivative work: -- Jtneill - Talk (Inside_my_head.jpg) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://onlyskymedia.newspackstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/psychology.jpg)
Posted inPsychology
Putting the Doubting Thomas Episode to Bed, and Opening a Can of Worms
This is a long piece, but we get onto some good stuff, so stay on target. Catholic Dave Armstrong, over at his own Patheos Catholic channel blog, has been attempting to refute my recent pieces both on Doubting Thomas and on picking apart his own responses. Unfortunately, Dave is pretty much a poster boy for […]