Tag Archives: Apologetics

Commentary

Did Christianity invent stories by borrowing from pagan religions?

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Have you ever had someone tell you that Christianity borrowed from other pagan religions in order to create history out of nothing? Me either. Because the people who make such arguments are all confined to lunatic asylums. Almost no reputable historian makes arguments like this.

Well, Shane over at Caffeinated Thoughts wrote a post to answer the objection. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

…the basic premise is that since Horus and Mithra both pre-date the New Testament, Christianity merely borrowed from that mythology ascribing to Jesus the virgin birth, the disciples, the tomb, and the resurrection.

Go here to read the rest.

And then you can see how well these theories do in formal academic debates. Listen to these two debates with the two best “mystery religions” people, squaring off against William Lane Craig.

Notice how neither of these debates is even close. Carrier admitted defeat after his debate, and Price admits that  virtually no one agrees with him during his debate. This is fringe stuff that is very interesting to people who have no interest in testing their ideas in debates with professional scholars.

Debates about the historical Jesus are listed in this previous post.

Related posts

UPDATE: Dr. Glenn Peoples has a refutation of the lame Mithra hypothesis here.

News

Apologetics 315 presents the apologetics year in review

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See this post up at Apologetics 315 in case you missed anything!

Especially:

  • William Lane Craig debates Christopher Hitchens here.
  • William Lane Craig debates Richard Carrier on the Resurrection here.
  • Michael Licona debates Bart Ehrman on the Resurrection here.
  • Richard Dawkins talked to John Lennox about science and God here.

And:

The most notable book releases this year were probably Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer (audio interview here), The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology edited by Craig and Moreland, and Tactics by Greg Koukl.

Stop by and make sure you didn’t miss anything! (I left him a comment about the 2009 Greer-Heard Forum that he missed!)

Podcasts

Biology and physics professors debate whether Christianity is true

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The new Unbelievable debate is up, and this time Justin found a fine Christian. A professor of nanotechnology who has enormous intellectual firepower and an incredible scientific background. The atheist is Lewis Wolpert, a very high-profile atheistic cell biologist in the UK, who debated William Lane Craig a while back.

The speakers:

Atheist scientist Lewis Wolpert debates believing scientist Russell Cowburn. Professor Lewis Wolpert is Emeritus Professor of Biology at University College London. Professor Russell Cowburn is Chair of Nanotechnology at Imperial College.

Cowburn is formerly of Cambridge University. Although he does concede evolution in the debate, yuck! That part where he concedes evolution is a little annoying. Still, he is a fine speaker, he radiates competence and confidence, and does a great job of explaining Christianity. I wish I could send him a Signature in the Cell. We have so much more evidence for intelligent design today, that there is no reason to make those concessions!

The MP3 file is here.

One funny thing occurs when Lewis Wolpert says that he gave up belief in God (as a Jew) when God wouldn’t help him to find his cricket bat. He also says that he has never heard of any evidence for God’s existence, which is odd since he debated Bill Craig.

If you listen to the whole thing, Justin also says that Wolpert will be back to debate William Dembski in January 2010 as part of a series on intelligent design. (Expelled is going to be released in the UK in 2010)

Wolpert’s case:

  • Religious belief exists because it provides an evolutionary advantage
  • There are so many different religions so Christianity cannot be correct
  • There haven’t been enough recent miracles

Cowburn’s case:

  • The kalam cosmological argument
  • The fine-tuning argument
  • The historicity of the resurrection

The full debate is available here at the web site of the church which hosted the debate. I note that it’s a independent evangelical Baptist church and I’m an independent evangelical Baptist, so yay! Just take a look at this church’s web page – it’s filled with debates! Now this is the church I would attend if I lived in London.