CADRE Comments

So! -- this is an oldie, but... ..... .... uh... well... it's an oldie... where I come from.... (Originally posted on Themestream long, long ago in the early days of internet blogging. Recalled for purposes of contributing to a Facebook post about a similar satire in these modern days. I actually did have the dream as a dream, but with somewhat less detail. No doubt inspired by Gregory Boyd's Cynic Sage or Son of God , which I had been dictating to tape at the time.) I had a dream one night, that put me in one of those stressful situations which although highly improbable is still possible enough to be frightening. In this case, I found myself on a floodlit indoor lecturing stage at a small wooden desk with a microphone. This was to my left; on the other side of the stage, at a desk similar to mine, sat another man who looked very annoyed to be wasting his time there. Between us, set forward closer to the stage edge, stood a podium, also with microphone, and a transpare

  Realms Beyond I've demonstrated in other posts ,  that transcendent realms were not the origination comcept of suernatural. That is, however, the modern Western concept. Thus, we might as well ask, are there realms beyond our knowing, is this possible? If so, is there any possibility of our investigating them? Scientists have usually tended to assume that metaphysical assumptions about realms beyond are just out of the domain of science and can’t be investigated so they don’t bother to comment. Victor Stenger, however, wants to be able to assert that he’s disproved them so he argues that the magisteria do overlap. “There exists a widespread notion, promulgated at the higher levels of the scientific community itself, that science has nothing to say about God or the supernatural…” [1]   He sights the national academy of sciences and their position that these are non overlapping magisteria, “science is a way of knowing about the natural world. It

I heard a debate between Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennett on the way home from work the other day. According to the debate organizers at issue was the question, “Are Science and Religion Compatible?” But as the debate actually unfolded it seemed to center specifically on Plantinga's "Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism."    Now it should be noted up front that I am personally quite skeptical of what I call grand-scale evolutionary theory: descent with modification of the entire range of presently observable biological diversity, by strictly natural mechanisms such as selection, and from a single common ancestral stock. Call me personally incredulous. But I did think it fascinating that even on the premise that grand-scale evolution is a “fact of science” that no rational person would ever doubt, Plantinga has nonetheless perceived a self-defeating weakness in the popular philosophical conjunction of naturalism and evolution – namely that the probability of o

I am not going to deal with any of the Pagan historians who document Jesus existence, such as Tacitus. Tacitus is defensible but it's not really the best evidence. Going by the best I've done Kirby's attempt at making the case on Josephus, Here I will deal with his straw man on the Talmud .[1] Then on NT and Church "fathers." Remember Kirby is doing a straw man argument, making the alleged "best case" for Jesus historicity so he can tear it down and say "I made the case and it doesn't stand up to my fierce onslaught." That's what I expect from a coward who is so threatened by better scholars that he chases them off his message board with the flimsy excuse that they have too many posts on the bard. So here we have the section where he makes his straw man version of the Talmudic Evidence for Jesus' Historicity. Kirby writes: This is the Jewish tradition regarding the trial of Jesus, found in the Babylonian Talmud, b. Sanh. 43

Peter Kirby is a gifted armature in Biblical research. He knows an incredible amount for a message board poster. He also runs an impressive message board and he prevents it from being contaminated by Christians and people who disagree with him by removing their posts under the guise of cleaning up the board. This is how he got me off the board when my presence there threatened him since he was unable to combat my superior knowledge. I've been running message boards for 15 years and I've never found too many posts to be a problem,. I also find it odd that he just happened to take off all the posts that he could not answer, Little did he know that in so doing he has called down upon himself the wrath of Atheistwatch! When the readers of this blig learn this, both of them will be very angry, Kirby had made the statement that the case for Jesus' historicity is very weak and that his bog piece, The Best Case for Jesus : Historical Jesus , proves this. That is pretty arro

As h as often been suggested by atheists and theists alike, the argument from evil is probably the single greatest intellectual threat to the truth of Christian theism. In its most basic form the argument from evil derives from the following propositions: 1. God is all-powerful. 2. God is all-good. 3. Evil exists. A reductio ad absurdum is said to result when one simply adds a fourth proposition, "God exists." That is, the set becomes logically inconsistent. Epicurus famously said it like this: "Is God willing but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?" This in a nutshell is the logical argument from evil. The logical problem of evil has fallen on hard times. Ever since Alvin Plantinga published his "Free Will Defense," the burden of proof has shifted to the atheologian, to show the logical inconsistency of the set of premises constituting the