Has anyone else noticed how often Christian apologists will try to use philosophy to legitimize their supernatural belief system? It always bugs the hell out of me when a Christian starts using philosophical trick questions such as: “How do you know that you even exist? Maybe you are just a figment of someone else’s imagination. PROVE TO ME YOU EXIST, GARY!”
I just found a great article that discusses this topic. It explains how Philosophy is completely dependent on Religion for its existence. And I would assert that Religion is heavily dependent on Philosophy for its legitimacy in a modern society. The classic symbiotic relationship! Without Philosophy, theistic belief systems would be seen as the superstitious nonsense that we skeptics believe they are. Here is a link to the article:
As an example of what I said about Christian apologists using philosophy to defend their belief system, here is our friend “Nick” at Theology Web, accusing skeptics of putting too much faith in science and ignoring the value of philosophy:
i have a problem and need help. i keep getting back on that theology forum with Gary and Dave and I cant seem to stop. I’ll back away, but then somehow find myself “just peaking back in” only to fall back into stupid discussions.
I really want to stop, I do.
Good luck William, I am trying to quit and we’ll see how that pans out.
I see that Nick responded to my last post, but it is so many pages back now that I might just leave it alone. I really try to avoid debates which is all Nick is doing and he’s a pro. He is an excellent apologist, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing. It means he can’t just discuss things with an open mind and consider any other possibilities. He has a following that depends on him to make all skeptics look like fools and he has the book smarts to back it up. Also, this is a career for him, while the rest of us consider it more of a hobby.
You might be interested in reading “Not the impossible faith” by Richard Carrier. The book is a complete rebuttal to J.P. Holding’s “The impossible faith”. Actually, a lot of the book can be found online at: http://infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/improbable/
I didn’t bring it up on TheologyWeb because they all think Carrier is a joke because he does not teach at a university. Well, the same could be said for J.P. Holding because as far as I know he doesn’t teach at a university either.
I’m now being a real jerk (when am I not?) over on Theology Web and doing my best to bust Nick’s balls. He is such a pompous prick. He is currently studying for a master’s in philosophy at some small college in North Carolina, which means he only has a BA. Yet he’s acting as if he is a PhD scholar! Seriously, check out his pompous nonsense on this link:
He trash talks science non-stop and tries to say that scientists and all skeptics need to learn philosophy to legitimately comment on the claims of Christianity. I let him know that philosophy is losing its status in modern society; historically it is the pastime of the lazy aristocracy; and that very soon it will have the same status in higher education as an art class.
If you can tell, my blood is starting to boil, so that probably means it is time I said “goodbye” to Theology Web…but like William…I just can’t stop!
A pretentious atheist over on Theology Web, and a buddy of “Nick the Christian”, named “Red Sea” has taken sides with the Christians in attacking me. His latest broadside is that I am an “idiot”. This is my response to him:
You should be ashamed of yourself for your chummy relationship with the members of this cult; throwing softballs to them (for how many years?) instead of hardballs; refusing to challenge them head on, with no holds barred, regarding the discrimination-inciting indoctrination and downright insanity of their belief system; a belief system that will teach yet another generation of young children to view an ancient superstition as a higher authority than reason and science; teaching little children that if they refuse to love and obey the ghost of a 2,000 year old dead man, that this “loving, perfect, compassionate” ghost will hurl them into a dark pit to be horrifically tortured, in some fashion, for all eternity.
As everyone I’m sure can guess, the conversation over on Theology Web degenerated into a brawl in the mud. I made my exit yesterday.
However, I have a question for my non-theist friends here on Nate’s blog: My position is that it is unnecessary to be a NT scholar nor know ANYTHING that NT scholars study to deny the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus.
My position is that any rational, unbiased person with a high school education living today, can ascertain, with no investigation or study of this ancient supernatural claim whatsoever, that the probability of a dead human body—truly dead for three days—having been reanimated by an ancient middle-eastern god, two thousand years ago, is so highly improbable it is not worth spending even five minutes investigating the claim.
Clearly the brain begins dying after six minutes, that’s an established fact. The entire episode of the raising of Lazarus was a literary device foreshadowing the coming resurrection and demonstrating in advance that it was possible.
I went in, and the amount of self righteousness that I see from the OP is crazy. It’s akin to people saying only Picard is the true Star Trek captain whereas Kirk is not really a captain since he doesn’t follow federation rules.
Hi Powell, I find the internal Christian discussions really interesting. When Atheists are circling they band together and present a united front. But in their own forums you see that none can agree with each other.
One of the real revelations to me has been to understand that it was like this from day one. The books of the NT (if one puts aside some of the obvious fabrication of history in Acts) are evidence that even in the early church they could not agree with each other. It has continued like that ever since.
The only time that there is little dissension is when either:
1) the church is persecuted and they band together; or
2) when the church is politically powerful and all dissent is clamped down on using the power of the State.
Arch, the raising of Lazarus is obviously a totally made up story. It is perhaps the greatest of the recorded miracle, it was witnessed by thousands (allegedly), according to John’s Gospel it was the reason the Jewish leaders wanted to kill Jesus.
Yet, there is no reference to it any where, not even the rest of the NT, outside of John’s Gospel. Most Christians never ask themselves the question why is it that this greatest of miracles totally escaped all notice of Christians and the Jews until suddenly it was reported around 60 years after the death of Jesus.
It seems most likely that John had to come up with another reason to have Jesus killed. In the Synoptic gospels it was the cleansing of the temple. But for theological reasons John moved that to the start of his gospel, so he had to invent another reason. He seems to have taken the parable from Luke’s Gospel and re-worked it into an actual story.
You are certainly right. Just that this is not new information for me perhaps, as I actually left my first church because of doctrinal differences, and it’s again the quest for the truth so that I can lead my charges under me in good faith that brought be here today.
Now everytime I see christians bicker about whose version of belief is more correct I just wanna laugh. Seriously… Dead man rising and talking snakes and global flood, and you guys are debating on what Paul/ Pseudo Paul said in 2nd Corinthians?
I think that Nick and the others over at theologyweb have to rely on the broad generic statement that “the NT scholars agree there was a Resurrection,” because nothing else about it holds up or makes good sense.
They fall back to a defense of, “well, the really educated people in the field know it’s true, so if you don’t agree with them, and are not a scholar yourself, then yours is a position of ignorance.”
I dont have time for that crap. They narrow their definition of scholar to “NT scholar” over ancient middle eastern scholars, or anything else. It’s almost like basing your beliefs regarding Islam on Koran Scholars, or whether there were ancient aliens on Ancient Alien Scholars.
But they dont seem to realize that by relying on these scholars and their works, they’re saying that the bible isnt good enough alone. So God’s work for man isn’t adequate without the help of educated men to clear it up and defend it – because it cant do that for itself.
for me, any way you look at it, it’s a house of cards.
and then when you question such outrageous claims, they want to compare men raising from the dead as being just as believable as George Washington crossing the Delaware.
It’s mind numbing.
“well, you only have claims for George Washington crossing the Delaware, therefore – Jesus was born of Virgin, came back to life after being dead for 3 days and flew into heaven. If you wont accept the claims for that, i guess you just wont believe anything…”
I think the author of John used the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke as a basis for his miracle story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. In Luke’s parable Abraham tells the rich man that even if Lazarus comes back from the dead they still won’t repent. John turns this into a reality and has Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead.
They fall back to a defense of, “well, the really educated people in the field know it’s true, so if you don’t agree with them, and are not a scholar yourself, then yours is a position of ignorance.”
Haha sounds like Unklee to me. Hey Unklee if you’re reading this I bear you no malice. Just saying.
Ancient Alien Scholars. To be fair I think this group of jokers are another level of crazy altogether compared to our religious brothers. Then again, we don’t have to look far to have christians with alien/outer space flavors. Planet Kolob anyone?
However, I have a question for my non-theist friends here on Nate’s blog: My position is that it is unnecessary to be a NT scholar nor know ANYTHING that NT scholars study to deny the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus.
My position is that any rational, unbiased person with a high school education living today, can ascertain, with no investigation or study of this ancient supernatural claim whatsoever, that the probability of a dead human body—truly dead for three days—having been reanimated by an ancient middle-eastern god, two thousand years ago, is so highly improbable it is not worth spending even five minutes investigating the claim.
What do you think?
Yeah, I think anyone who can read can take a look at the evidence and ascertain that the evidence is weak. We have the creed in 1 Cor. 15 and the anonymous gospel accounts. So there are no confirmed eyewitness accounts for the actual miracle. Let’s face it, even if we had an eyewitness account for something improbable like an alien or ghost encounter we would STILL be skeptical and in this instance we don’t even have any confirmed eyewitness accounts! We have a motivated preacher, Paul, reciting a belief that originated from a group of people we know almost nothing about, that a man came back from the dead and appeared to all of his close followers. Sorry, but I just can’t help but be skeptical of this claim. I just don’t trust the human brain enough. People get duped or mistaken all the time and end up believing what they want to believe is true. That’s why the Virgin Mary only appears to Catholics.
Hey, have you guys noticed the turn of events on Theology Web? (I know, I left…but went back.)
A Christian apologist on Theology Web named “psstein” is asserting that the majority of NT scholars now believe that Matthew’s claim of guards at the tomb is NOT historical? Nick has not commented, but if this is true, I think that the Christian “evidence” has just gone from very weak to pathetic.
If there were no guards at the tomb, there are any number of possible and very plausible explanations for an empty tomb. None of the Christians on TW are saying that “psstein” is wrong on this assertion by NT scholars on the Roman guards.
Regardless, Gary, as you’ve pointed out and I’ve personally read, the guards weren’t placed there until the next day, so historical or not, that first night was wide open.
I agree Arch but Christians would often use the excuse of “Who would be out on Passover moving a dead body? Ridiculous and implausible.”
But if there were no guards for the entire 72 hours, then that excuse is removed. I think Christians have shot themselves in the foot. The guards at the tomb was their best defense.
I wouldn’t hold my breath, they’ll just macgyver some new creative excuse and pretend that nobody ever suggested the first defense, and you’re just strawmanning because True Christians TM would not have said that because holy spirit.
Finding Truth 
TThe “higher power’s” name is Will – Will Power.
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Has anyone else noticed how often Christian apologists will try to use philosophy to legitimize their supernatural belief system? It always bugs the hell out of me when a Christian starts using philosophical trick questions such as: “How do you know that you even exist? Maybe you are just a figment of someone else’s imagination. PROVE TO ME YOU EXIST, GARY!”
I just found a great article that discusses this topic. It explains how Philosophy is completely dependent on Religion for its existence. And I would assert that Religion is heavily dependent on Philosophy for its legitimacy in a modern society. The classic symbiotic relationship! Without Philosophy, theistic belief systems would be seen as the superstitious nonsense that we skeptics believe they are. Here is a link to the article:
https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/does-philosophy-have-a-future/
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As an example of what I said about Christian apologists using philosophy to defend their belief system, here is our friend “Nick” at Theology Web, accusing skeptics of putting too much faith in science and ignoring the value of philosophy:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?7995-Book-Plunge-Why-Science-Does-Not-Disprove-God
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Good luck William, I am trying to quit and we’ll see how that pans out.
I see that Nick responded to my last post, but it is so many pages back now that I might just leave it alone. I really try to avoid debates which is all Nick is doing and he’s a pro. He is an excellent apologist, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing. It means he can’t just discuss things with an open mind and consider any other possibilities. He has a following that depends on him to make all skeptics look like fools and he has the book smarts to back it up. Also, this is a career for him, while the rest of us consider it more of a hobby.
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Gary,
You might be interested in reading “Not the impossible faith” by Richard Carrier. The book is a complete rebuttal to J.P. Holding’s “The impossible faith”. Actually, a lot of the book can be found online at: http://infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/improbable/
I didn’t bring it up on TheologyWeb because they all think Carrier is a joke because he does not teach at a university. Well, the same could be said for J.P. Holding because as far as I know he doesn’t teach at a university either.
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Hi Dave,
Thanks for the referral.
I’m now being a real jerk (when am I not?) over on Theology Web and doing my best to bust Nick’s balls. He is such a pompous prick. He is currently studying for a master’s in philosophy at some small college in North Carolina, which means he only has a BA. Yet he’s acting as if he is a PhD scholar! Seriously, check out his pompous nonsense on this link:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?7995-Book-Plunge-Why-Science-Does-Not-Disprove-God
He trash talks science non-stop and tries to say that scientists and all skeptics need to learn philosophy to legitimately comment on the claims of Christianity. I let him know that philosophy is losing its status in modern society; historically it is the pastime of the lazy aristocracy; and that very soon it will have the same status in higher education as an art class.
If you can tell, my blood is starting to boil, so that probably means it is time I said “goodbye” to Theology Web…but like William…I just can’t stop!
🙂
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Ok…I’m going on tilt now.
A pretentious atheist over on Theology Web, and a buddy of “Nick the Christian”, named “Red Sea” has taken sides with the Christians in attacking me. His latest broadside is that I am an “idiot”. This is my response to him:
You should be ashamed of yourself for your chummy relationship with the members of this cult; throwing softballs to them (for how many years?) instead of hardballs; refusing to challenge them head on, with no holds barred, regarding the discrimination-inciting indoctrination and downright insanity of their belief system; a belief system that will teach yet another generation of young children to view an ancient superstition as a higher authority than reason and science; teaching little children that if they refuse to love and obey the ghost of a 2,000 year old dead man, that this “loving, perfect, compassionate” ghost will hurl them into a dark pit to be horrifically tortured, in some fashion, for all eternity.
SHAME
ON
YOU.
Ok. Does anyone have a Xanax?
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As everyone I’m sure can guess, the conversation over on Theology Web degenerated into a brawl in the mud. I made my exit yesterday.
However, I have a question for my non-theist friends here on Nate’s blog: My position is that it is unnecessary to be a NT scholar nor know ANYTHING that NT scholars study to deny the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus.
My position is that any rational, unbiased person with a high school education living today, can ascertain, with no investigation or study of this ancient supernatural claim whatsoever, that the probability of a dead human body—truly dead for three days—having been reanimated by an ancient middle-eastern god, two thousand years ago, is so highly improbable it is not worth spending even five minutes investigating the claim.
What do you think?
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Clearly the brain begins dying after six minutes, that’s an established fact. The entire episode of the raising of Lazarus was a literary device foreshadowing the coming resurrection and demonstrating in advance that it was possible.
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For those, interested there is a fascinating discussion Here among some Christian folk about heresy.
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@Peter
I went in, and the amount of self righteousness that I see from the OP is crazy. It’s akin to people saying only Picard is the true Star Trek captain whereas Kirk is not really a captain since he doesn’t follow federation rules.
LikeLike
Hi Powell, I find the internal Christian discussions really interesting. When Atheists are circling they band together and present a united front. But in their own forums you see that none can agree with each other.
One of the real revelations to me has been to understand that it was like this from day one. The books of the NT (if one puts aside some of the obvious fabrication of history in Acts) are evidence that even in the early church they could not agree with each other. It has continued like that ever since.
The only time that there is little dissension is when either:
1) the church is persecuted and they band together; or
2) when the church is politically powerful and all dissent is clamped down on using the power of the State.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Arch, the raising of Lazarus is obviously a totally made up story. It is perhaps the greatest of the recorded miracle, it was witnessed by thousands (allegedly), according to John’s Gospel it was the reason the Jewish leaders wanted to kill Jesus.
Yet, there is no reference to it any where, not even the rest of the NT, outside of John’s Gospel. Most Christians never ask themselves the question why is it that this greatest of miracles totally escaped all notice of Christians and the Jews until suddenly it was reported around 60 years after the death of Jesus.
It seems most likely that John had to come up with another reason to have Jesus killed. In the Synoptic gospels it was the cleansing of the temple. But for theological reasons John moved that to the start of his gospel, so he had to invent another reason. He seems to have taken the parable from Luke’s Gospel and re-worked it into an actual story.
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Oh, what a tangled web we weave —
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@Peter
You are certainly right. Just that this is not new information for me perhaps, as I actually left my first church because of doctrinal differences, and it’s again the quest for the truth so that I can lead my charges under me in good faith that brought be here today.
Now everytime I see christians bicker about whose version of belief is more correct I just wanna laugh. Seriously… Dead man rising and talking snakes and global flood, and you guys are debating on what Paul/ Pseudo Paul said in 2nd Corinthians?
LikeLike
I think that Nick and the others over at theologyweb have to rely on the broad generic statement that “the NT scholars agree there was a Resurrection,” because nothing else about it holds up or makes good sense.
They fall back to a defense of, “well, the really educated people in the field know it’s true, so if you don’t agree with them, and are not a scholar yourself, then yours is a position of ignorance.”
I dont have time for that crap. They narrow their definition of scholar to “NT scholar” over ancient middle eastern scholars, or anything else. It’s almost like basing your beliefs regarding Islam on Koran Scholars, or whether there were ancient aliens on Ancient Alien Scholars.
But they dont seem to realize that by relying on these scholars and their works, they’re saying that the bible isnt good enough alone. So God’s work for man isn’t adequate without the help of educated men to clear it up and defend it – because it cant do that for itself.
for me, any way you look at it, it’s a house of cards.
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@Powellpowers,
and then when you question such outrageous claims, they want to compare men raising from the dead as being just as believable as George Washington crossing the Delaware.
It’s mind numbing.
“well, you only have claims for George Washington crossing the Delaware, therefore – Jesus was born of Virgin, came back to life after being dead for 3 days and flew into heaven. If you wont accept the claims for that, i guess you just wont believe anything…”
just crazy
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I think the author of John used the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke as a basis for his miracle story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. In Luke’s parable Abraham tells the rich man that even if Lazarus comes back from the dead they still won’t repent. John turns this into a reality and has Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead.
There is textual evidence for this as well as outlined in: https://www.umass.edu/wsp/project/senior/FromLukeToJohn.pdf
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@William
They fall back to a defense of, “well, the really educated people in the field know it’s true, so if you don’t agree with them, and are not a scholar yourself, then yours is a position of ignorance.”
Haha sounds like Unklee to me. Hey Unklee if you’re reading this I bear you no malice. Just saying.
Ancient Alien Scholars. To be fair I think this group of jokers are another level of crazy altogether compared to our religious brothers. Then again, we don’t have to look far to have christians with alien/outer space flavors. Planet Kolob anyone?
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@Dave
That is something I noticed before but didn’t really explore. Thanks for the link!
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@Gary
Yeah, I think anyone who can read can take a look at the evidence and ascertain that the evidence is weak. We have the creed in 1 Cor. 15 and the anonymous gospel accounts. So there are no confirmed eyewitness accounts for the actual miracle. Let’s face it, even if we had an eyewitness account for something improbable like an alien or ghost encounter we would STILL be skeptical and in this instance we don’t even have any confirmed eyewitness accounts! We have a motivated preacher, Paul, reciting a belief that originated from a group of people we know almost nothing about, that a man came back from the dead and appeared to all of his close followers. Sorry, but I just can’t help but be skeptical of this claim. I just don’t trust the human brain enough. People get duped or mistaken all the time and end up believing what they want to believe is true. That’s why the Virgin Mary only appears to Catholics.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey, have you guys noticed the turn of events on Theology Web? (I know, I left…but went back.)
A Christian apologist on Theology Web named “psstein” is asserting that the majority of NT scholars now believe that Matthew’s claim of guards at the tomb is NOT historical? Nick has not commented, but if this is true, I think that the Christian “evidence” has just gone from very weak to pathetic.
If there were no guards at the tomb, there are any number of possible and very plausible explanations for an empty tomb. None of the Christians on TW are saying that “psstein” is wrong on this assertion by NT scholars on the Roman guards.
I’m stunned.
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Regardless, Gary, as you’ve pointed out and I’ve personally read, the guards weren’t placed there until the next day, so historical or not, that first night was wide open.
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I agree Arch but Christians would often use the excuse of “Who would be out on Passover moving a dead body? Ridiculous and implausible.”
But if there were no guards for the entire 72 hours, then that excuse is removed. I think Christians have shot themselves in the foot. The guards at the tomb was their best defense.
They should have stuck to inerrancy at all cost.
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@Gary
I wouldn’t hold my breath, they’ll just macgyver some new creative excuse and pretend that nobody ever suggested the first defense, and you’re just strawmanning because True Christians TM would not have said that because holy spirit.
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