Tag Archives: Atheist

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William Lane Craig lectures on the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus

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Sherlock Holmes and John Watson: let's take a look at the facts
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson: let’s take a look at the facts

Here is Dr. William Lane Craig giving a long-form argument for the historical event of the resurrection of Jesus, and taking questions from the audience.

The speaker introduction goes for 6 minutes, then Dr. Craig speaks for 35 minutes, then it’s a period of questions and answers with the audience. The total length is 93 minutes, so quite a long period of Q&A. The questions in the Q&A period are quite good.

Introduction:

  • Many people who are willing to accept God’s existence are not willing to accept the God of Christianity
  • Christians need to be ready to show that Jesus rose from the dead as a historical event
  • Private faith is fine for individuals, but when dealing with the public you have to have evidence
  • When making the case, you cannot assume that your audience accepts the Bible as inerrant
  • You must use the New Testament like any other ancient historical document
  • Most historians, Christian and not, accept the basic minimal facts supporting the resurrection of Jesus

Fact #1: the burial of Jesus following his crucifixion

  • Fact #1 is supported by the early creed found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15)
  • Fact #1 is supported by the early Passion narrative which was a source for Mark’s gospel
  • Fact #1 passes the criterion of enemy attestation, since it praises one of the Sanhedrin
  • Fact #1 is not opposed by any competing burial narratives

Fact #2: on the Sunday following his crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by some women

  • Fact #2 is supported by the early Passion narrative which was a source for Mark’s gospel
  • Fact #2 is implied by the early creed found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15)
  • Fact #2 is simple and lacks legendary embellishment, which argues for an early dating
  • Fact #2 passes the criterion of embarrassment, because it has female, not male, witnesses
  • Fact #2 passes the criterion of enemy attestation, since it is reported by the Jewish leaders

Fact #3: Jesus appeared to various people in various circumstances after his death

  • Fact #3 is supported by the early creed found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15)
  • Fact #3 is supported by multiple, independent reports of the events from all four gospels
  • Fact #3 explains other historical facts, like the conversion of Jesus’ skeptical brother James

Fact #4: the earliest Christians proclaimed their belief in the resurrection of Jesus

  • Fact #4 explains why the earliest Christians continued to identify Jesus as the Messiah
  • Fact #4 explains why the earliest Christians were suddenly so unconcerned about being killed

Dr. Craig then asks which hypothesis explains all four of these facts. He surveys a number of naturalistic hypotheses, such as the hallucination theory or various conspiracy theories. All of these theories deny one or more of the minimal facts that have been established and accepted by the broad spectrum of historians. In order to reject the resurrection hypothesis, a skeptic would have to deny one of the four facts or propose an explanation that explains those facts better than the resurrection hypothesis.

I listened to the Q&A period while doing housekeeping and I heard lots of good questions. Dr. Craig gives very long answers to the questions. One person asked why we should trust the claim that the Jewish leaders really did say that the disciples stole the body. Another one asked why we should take the resurrection as proof that Jesus was divine. Another asks about the earthquake in Matthewand whether it is intended to be historical or apocalyptic imagery. Dr. Craig is also asked about the Jewish scholar Geza Vermes, and how many of the minimal facts he accepts. Another questioner asked about the ascension.

If you are looking for a good book to read on this topic, the best introductory book on the resurrection is “The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus” and the best comprehensive book is “The Resurrection of Jesus“.

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Gay rights activist Congresswoman admits to affair with younger campaign staffer

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Here she is speaking for the Human Rights Campaign, a massive gay rights group
Katie Hill speaking for the Human Rights Campaign, a major gay rights group

When I saw all these stories coming out about Hollywood elites and Democrat mega-donors exposed for sexual harassment, pedophilia, rape, etc., I really started to wonder whether there is anything more to the Democrat party than championing sexual perversion and inflicting the consequences of that onto children, born and unborn. Here’s the latest Democrat sex scandal in the news.

Here’s the Washington Examiner reporting:

California Democratic Rep. Katie Hill was still paying consulting fees to her campaign staffer and former lover Morgan Desjardins, 24, as recently as last month.

According to FEC Records, since April 2019, Hill’s campaign has paid a little over $14,000 in fundraising-related consulting fees to Desjardins, doling out around $2,500 most months. Additionally, between 2017 and 2018, she made around $50,000 as a senior campaign staffer.

Hill, who is facing a House Ethics Committee investigation over allegations she had an intimate relationship with her legislative director, Graham Kelly, found herself under scrutiny after a nude photo of her brushing Desjardin’s hair was posted on the RedState.

Hill, 32, has admitted her relationship with Desjardins during her successful campaign for a House seat based in northern Los Angeles County but disputed any inappropriate relationship between her and Kelly occurred.

The image was posted along with text messages sent between Hill, the congresswoman’s estranged husband Kenny Heslep, whom she is divorcing, and Desjardins. According to the texts posted at RedState, the trio had an intimate three-way relationship during Hill’s first campaign for office, but it soured quickly after she won her race and went to Washington, D.C.

Now, the problem with having sex with your subordinates is that there is a power dynamic, because you are paying them. It’s easy to see what Katie Hill did as sexual assault and even rape, because her employees may have felt that they had to do whatever she wanted, e.g. – threesomes, with her, or they would lose their jobs. This is why companies outlaw relationships between employees – they don’t want people to use power within the company to pressure subordinates into sexual activities. Yet Democrats do this all the time and the mainstream media is silent about it.

Remember, even the pious, moral Muslim Ilhan Omar is now divorcing her husband because she had an affair with someone she was paying with campaign funds:

Rep. Ilhan Omar has filed for divorce from the father of her three kids, claiming the marriage is “irretrievable” — amid allegations that she had an affair with DC-based political consultant Tim Mynett.

[…]In August, The Post was first to report that DC-based doctor Beth Mynett had filed for divorce from her husband, Tim Mynett, alleging that he was carrying on an affair with Omar.

All the while, Omar’s campaign fund was paying Tim Mynett’s firm for work, including for travel.

Are Democrats really obsessed with sexual deviancy? Well, consider Democrats like Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, Eric Schneiderman, Ed Murray, etc. It seems like they are always involved in sex scandals. And in fact you can even see wealthy Democrat mega-donors like Jeffrey Epstein and Terry Bean getting charged with having sex with underage people all the time. (Terry Bean is the co-founder of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay rights group in the nation). The Democrat politicians who take money from the sexual deviants then try to change America to make what their donors are doing seem normal and even praiseworthy. That’s why Hillary Clinton threatened the women who accused her husband of rape and sexual assault.

Sexual deviancy seems to be the main plank in the Democrat party platform, and all the rest of the rhetoric about “free this” and “free that” is just to buy the votes needed to make all sorts of adult selfishness and sexual exploitation of the weak legal, and even immune to dissent and disapproval. Which is why Democrats are always using the government to attack Christians who disapprove of adult selfishness and sexual exploitation of the weak.

Now I have a question for you. What is it that young Democrat women are hoping to achieve by supporting the party of sexual deviance? Do they think that this will lead them to a faithful man, a stable marriage, well-behaved children and a peaceful home? If so, then maybe we ought to be having talks with young women about what sort of worldview grounds self-sacrificial love, commitment, and objective moral obligations. It sure isn’t the secular leftist nihilistic worldview of the Democrat party. If they want a Mike Pence marriage, then why not tell them to get the worldview of Mike Pence? They certainly won’t get to a Mike Pence marriage with the worldview of Katie Hill.

If you want to read more about Katie Hill’s destructive relationships, check out this story from Red State, which has blurred photos and text messages.

News

Atheist Jerry Coyne explains why morality is impossible for atheists

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Sherlock Holmes and John Watson about to do philosophy
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson about to do philosophy

Let’s review what you need in your worldview in order to have a rationally grounded system of morality.

You need 5 things:

1) Objective moral values

There needs to be a way to distinguish what is good from what is bad. For example, the moral standard might specify that being kind to children is good, but torturing them for fun is bad. If the standard is purely subjective, then people could believe anything and each person would be justified in doing right in their own eyes. Even a “social contract” is just based on people’s opinions. So we need a standard that applies regardless of what people’s individual and collective opinions are.

2) Objective moral duties

Moral duties (moral obligations) refer to the actions that are obligatory based on the moral values defined in 1). Suppose we spot you 1) as an atheist. Why are you obligated to do the good thing, rather than the bad thing? To whom is this obligation owed? Why is rational for you to limit your actions based upon this obligation when it is against your self-interest? Why let other people’s expectations decide what is good for you, especially if you can avoid the consequences of their disapproval?

3) Moral accountability

Suppose we spot you 1) and 2) as an atheist. What difference does it make to you if you just go ahead and disregard your moral obligations to whomever? Is there any reward or punishment for your choice to do right or do wrong? What’s in it for you?

4) Free will

In order for agents to make free moral choices, they must be able to act or abstain from acting by exercising their free will. If there is no free will, then moral choices are impossible. If there are no moral choices, then no one can be held responsible for anything they do. If there is no moral responsibility, then there can be no praise and blame. But then it becomes impossible to praise any action as good or evil.

5) Ultimate significance

Finally, beyond the concept of reward and punishment in 3), we can also ask the question “what does it matter?”. Suppose you do live a good life and you get a reward: 1000 chocolate sundaes. And when you’ve finished eating them, you die for real and that’s the end. In other words, the reward is satisfying, but not really meaningful, ultimately. It’s hard to see how moral actions can be meaningful, ultimately, unless their consequences last on into the future.

Theism rationally grounds all 5 of these. Atheism cannot ground any of them.

Let’s take a look at #4: free will and see how atheism deals with that.

Atheism and free will?

Here’s prominent atheist Jerry Coyne’s editorial in USA Today to explain why atheists can’t ground free will. (Note: link is dead)

Excerpt:

And that’s what neurobiology is telling us: Our brains are simply meat computers that, like real computers, are programmed by our genes and experiences to convert an array of inputs into a predetermined output. Recent experiments involving brain scans show that when a subject “decides” to push a button on the left or right side of a computer, the choice can be predicted by brain activity at least seven seconds before the subject is consciously aware of having made it. (These studies use crude imaging techniques based on blood flow, and I suspect that future understanding of the brain will allow us to predict many of our decisions far earlier than seven seconds in advance.) “Decisions” made like that aren’t conscious ones. And if our choices are unconscious, with some determined well before the moment we think we’ve made them, then we don’t have free will in any meaningful sense.

If you don’t have free will, then you can’t make moral choices, and you can’t be held morally responsible. No free will means no morality.

Here are some more atheists to explain how atheists view morality.

William Provine says atheists have no free will, no moral accountability and no moral significance:

Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.

Richard Dawkins says atheists have no objective moral standards:

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, or any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference… DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. (Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (1995))

When village atheists talk about how they can be moral without God, it’s important to ask them to justify the minimum requirements for rational morality. Atheists may act inconsistently with their worldview, believing in free will, expecting praise and blame for complying with the arbitrary standards of their peer group, etc. But there is nothing more to morality on atheism that imitating the herd – at least when the herd is around to watch them. And when the herd loses its Judeo-Christian foundation – watch out. That’s when the real atheism comes out – the atheism that we’ve seen before in countries that turned their backs on God, and the moral law. When God disappears from a society, anything is permissible.