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6:04 PM
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Sunday, February 19, 2006
interview with the producer of the movie "The God Who Wasn't There"
In his film "The God Who Wasn't There," Brian Flemming questions the very existence of Jesus Christ, a premise that might leave some hard-core Christians convinced this former Christian is going to hell.In the film, Flemming argues that the biblical Jesus is a myth, a legend based on allegorical stories that were never supposed to be seen as historical accounts.
It's a provocative claim but not without precedent. Many scholars have questioned the historicity of the Jesus story, although it remains central to Christian beliefs.
Flemming, who now considers himself an atheist, lays out his case in interviews with academics and in conversations with believers outside a Billy Graham rally. He also returns to the evangelical school he attended in Southern California for a confrontational interview with the headmaster.
the rest ...
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5:50 PM
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Denmark, Iran Near War Over Pastry Naming Rights
Iran struck back against Denmark this week with a low blow to that nation’s most sacred symbol, the pastry known around the world as “the Danish.” In retaliation for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper, the Iranian Confectioners’ Union has ordered that the popular pastries be renamed “roses of the Prophet Muhammad.”As expected, the insult has incited chaos and instability across Denmark. Danes have taken to the streets in riotous fashion, burning Iranian flags and threatening to attack the Iranian Embassy. A group of Persian immigrants sustained minor injuries after walking into a popular bakery in Copenhagen and ordering three roses of Muhammad. The bakery’s employees reportedly pelted them with Danishes.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Rasmussen has expressed outrage at the insult to his country’s national pride, threatening consequences to all who disrespect the sanctity of Denmark’s blessed pastry. When asked if more cartoons would be published as a retaliatory act, he replied, “All options are on the table.”
Denmark’s supreme leader, Queen Margrethe II, angrily demanded a new name for Persian rugs as an initial counterstrike. After considering such names as “Nordic quilt” and “Viking mat,” the queen made a final decision. From now on, Danes will refer to the popular Oriental rug as the “sheath of Scandinavia.”
U.S. officials have thus far remained silent on the situation, possibly waiting to see if it escalates before issuing an official response. Despite hard questioning, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan refused to discuss the issue at Thursday’s press conference.
In order to get the inside scoop, I caught up with McClellan that evening while he was dining at a Capitol Hill cafeteria. “The White House feels that renaming a country’s most famous food incites anger and resentment instead of fostering a dialogue based on tolerance and mutual respect,” he said before turning back to his plate of Freedom Fries.
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5:32 PM
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Saturday, February 04, 2006
Sam Harris Answers His Critics
By Sam HarrisWhile “An Atheist Manifesto” received considerable support from readers of Truthdig, a variety of criticisms surfaced in the reader commentary. I summarize and respond to some of these below:
1. Just because you haven’t seen God doesn’t mean He doesn’t exist. Atheism, therefore, is as much an act of faith as theism is.
Bertrand Russell demolished this fallacy nearly a century ago with his famous teapot argument. As his response appears to me to be perfect, I simply offer it here:
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes.
But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. read more ...
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Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Why I Am Not a Christian by Richard Carrier
As a fellow freethinker, John Ransom engaged me to write a concise statement of why I am not a Christian. I should summarize my case, he said, simply and clearly so everyone could understand where I was coming from. John was especially frustrated that Christians routinely come up with implausible excuses to defend their faith that they don't really examine—as if defending the faith with any excuse mattered more than having a genuinely good reason to believe in the first place. Discussing our experiences, John and I realized we had both encountered many Christians like this, who color their entire perception of reality with the assumption that they have to be right, and therefore the evidence must somehow fit. So they could make anything up on the spur of the moment and be "sure" it was true.This is the exact opposite of what we do, which is to start with the evidence and then figure out what the best explanation of all of it really is, regardless of where this quest for truth takes us.
John and I also observed that when their dogmatism meets our empiricism, slander is not far behind. I myself have increasingly encountered Christians who accuse me to my face of being a liar, of being wicked, of not wanting to talk to God, of willfully ignoring evidence—because that is the only way they can explain my existence.
I cannot be an honest, well-informed pursuer of the truth who came to a fair and reasonable decision after a thorough examination of the evidence, because no such person can exist in the Christian worldview, who does not come to Christ. Therefore, I must be a wicked liar, I must be so deluded by sin that I am all but clinically insane, an irrational madman suffering some evil psychosis.
There is nothing I can do for such people. Nothing I ever show or say to them will ever convince them otherwise—it can't, because they start with the assumption that their belief in Christ has to be true, therefore right from the start everything I say or do is always going to be a lie or the product of some delusion. They don't need any evidence of this, because to their thinking it must be true. Such people are trapped in their own hall of mirrors, and for them there is no escape. They will never know they are wrong even if they are. No evidence, no logic, no reason will ever get through to them. When we combine this troubling fact with the observation that their religion, like every other, appears tailor-made to justify their own culture-bound desires and personal vanities—as if every God is made in man's image, not the other way around—then we already have grounds for suspicion. The fact that even the Christian idea of God has constantly changed to suit our cultural and historical circumstances, and is often constructed to be impervious to logic or doubt, is reason enough to step back and ask ourselves whether we're on the wrong track with the Christian worldview.
This essay will never convince Christians who have locked themselves inside a box of blind faith. But if there are any other Christians out there who actually have an open mind, and since all seekers or questioners typically already do, a good summary of my reasons for rejecting Christianity will help show at least to them why I am not a deluded liar, but an honest and reasonable man coming to an honest and reasonable decision. What follows is not meant to be a thorough exploration of every nuance and problem, nor an exhaustive account of all the arguments and evidence, but a mere summary of the four most important reasons I am not a Christian. It is the beginning of the story, not the whole of it.
This is what John asked for: a simple but well-written explanation of Why I Am Not a Christian.
rest of the story ...
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6:52 PM
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