CADRE Comments

In Book 20 of Josephus' Antiquities there is what could be called a passing reference to Jesus in a paragraph describing the murder of Jesus' brother, James, at the hands of Ananus, the High Priest. But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring; he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought before it the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James , together with some others, and having accused them as lawbreakers, he delivered them over to be stoned. Jewish Antiquities 20.9.1 (emphasis added). According to the leading Josephus scholar Louis H. Feldman, the authenticity of the reference to Jesus and James "has been almost ...

After actively engaging others in discussions on Christianity over the last ten years, I have become more and more convinced that logic in the hands of some atheists is like matches in the hands of children. While many skeptics use logic responsibly, some misuse or abuse logic becoming a danger to themselves and others. Today's case in point is an address that was made by a skeptic named Diana Mertz Hsieh who gave a speech before the San Diego Ayn Rand Salon entitled Why Be An Atheist? In the address, Ms. Hseih attempts to give a logical analysis of arguments for theism, agnosticism and atheism and to absolutely no one's surprise concludes that the only logical, rational and reasonable arguments support atheism. The only problem is that her analysis is, to put it bluntly, poor. She begins with an analysis of the cosmological argument from cause through what I will call the Uber-Turtle analogy. She says: The Cosmological Argument attempts to prove God’s existence by arguing: ...

Of course, I have made the claim that the so-called New Atheists (who are really poorer, more boisterous versions of older atheists) lack substance on several occasions. Today's Wall Street Journal has an article by Peter Berkowitz, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and teacher at George Mason University School of Law, that makes the same claim. According to The New New Atheism , the big selling books by the new atheists lack any real substance. They [the New Atheists] contend that from the vantage point of the 21st century, and thanks to the moral progress of mankind and the achievements of natural science, we can now know, with finality and certainty, that God does not exist and organized religion is a fraud. The disproportion between the bluster and bravado of their rhetoric and the limitations of their major arguments is astonishing. Mr. Berkowitz then focuses on the latest in the books attacking Christian and theistic belief, god is not Great: How Religion P...

Dr. Michael J. Murray of Franklin and Marshall University has posted an essay originally written for "God and the Philosophers" entitled Seek and You Will Find . The essay contains a really nice summary of the argument for a belief in Jesus based on the accounts of the resurrection found in the Gospels. Dr. Murray writes: There is virtual unanimity amongst historical scholars, Christian and non-Christian alike, about at least the following: that there was a man by the name of Jesus who lived in first-century Palestine, that during a short period of time he preached a message about the coming kingdom of God, that he attracted a small band of followers, that he was crucified by the Roman authorities, and that the same followers later claimed to have witnessed his resurrected body. Nothing is particularly surprising or noteworthy here until we consider that neither the prevailing civil or religious authorities of the time were particularly pleased with the upstart Christian mov...

So often, Christians are told that various events of the Old Testament never happened. Yet, as time passes, so many of the events are confirmed by archaeology that many Christians are satisfied to wait out the naysayers since further study regularly seems to come up with evidence confirming the accuracy of the scriptures. On July 10 came another bit of external evidence confirming the accuracy of at least some of the Old Testament writings. According to British Museum Makes Important Breakthough in Bibilical Archaeology , a cuneiform inscription on a small Babylonian clay tablet has confirmed the existence of a minor character described in the Book of Jeremiah as an officer serving King Nebuchadnezzar. The clay document is dated to the 10th year of Nebuchadnezzar II (595 BC) and names the official, Nebo-Sarsekim. According to chapter 39 of the Book of Jeremiah, he was present at the siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC with Nebuchadnezzar himself. In 601 BC King Nebuchadnezzar marched to the E...

In today's Townhall.com, Michael Medved has written a piece extremely critical of Christopher Hitchens and his new book, god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything , entitled Hitchens v. God . Medved unloads on Hitchens for sloppy scholarship and stawman arguments. For example, Medved states: The sly distortions and grotesque errors that appear in every chapter of his work demonstrate the author’s carelessness and arrogance. In one especially appalling example (on page 100), Hitchens writes of “the pitiless teachings of the god of Moses, who never mentions human solidarity and compassion at all.” He thereby ignores the most celebrated commandment in the Five Books of Moses, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), identified by Jewish sages (and in Matthew’s Gospel by Jesus himself) as the very essence of the Hebrew Scriptures. Hitchens also fails to acknowledge the innumerable Old Testament injunctions to show loving-kindness and mercy in dealing with widows, orp...

about my announcment to close my blog. Layman says: As a point of clarification, the CADRE blog remains open, Meta is referring to his individual blog . (Layman). yes right. I am sorry about the confussion. In fact I didn't mean to post on the CADRE site at all. the "dashboards" are together you see. So I hit the wrong button. I may reconsider my decision anyway.

Introductory note from Jason Pratt: I am here appending in several parts some excerpts from an unpublished book of mine, originally composed late 99/early 2000, wherein I work out a progressive synthetic metaphysic. The current topic is ethical grounding, and an analysis of problems along the three general lines of ethical explanation. The previous entry, which introduced the third general theory of ethics, can be found here. This material continues and concludes chapter 31, "the problem with the third explanation of ethics". Now would be a good time to look over there to the right, and read that disclaimer about how not every post necessarily reflects the beliefs of all Cadre members. In case anyone on my side of the aisle is feeling panicky, I recommend reading the "Heart of Freedom" essay again, since I pretty blatantly spoil the ending of where I'm going there. Until then, I'm going to indulge in a nice solid appreciation of sceptical problems with theis...

In The Irrationality of Richard Dawkins , by Francis J. Beckwith , published in First Things , Beckwith discusses the story of Dr. Kurt Wise, an accomplished geologist who has chosen to teach geology at a small Christian college because he accepts young-earth creationism (" YEC ")rather than seek to teach at a larger college where his YEC beliefs make him persona non grata . Dr. Wise chose this road because, as a Christian who reads the Bible literally (which is different than a belief in an inerrant Bible) he found "his reading of Scripture was inconsistent with the dominant scientific understanding of the age of the earth and the cosmos." Richard Dawkins , one of the present day poster children of the new atheists and author of The God Delusion, found Dr. Wise's choice to be pathetic . According to Beckwith's article: I find that terribly sad . . . the Kurt Wise story is just plain pathetic—pathetic and contemptible. The wound, to his career and his li...

Introductory note from Jason Pratt: I am here appending in several parts some excerpts from an unpublished book of mine, originally composed late 99/early 2000, wherein I work out a progressive synthetic metaphysic. The current topic is ethical grounding, and an analysis of problems along the three general lines of ethical explanation. The previous entry, which summarized problems with the first two general theories of ethics, can be found here. This material continues chapter 31, "the problem with the third explanation of ethics". I won't be getting to the actual problem of the third explanation yet, but I will be introducing the third explanation and generally comparing it to the previous two. ....... [excerpt begins here] What I will now concentrate on, is the third general theory. This theory proposes that ethics are, at bottom, objectively 'ethical'. According to this theory, when we behave 'ethically', then (at least some of the time) we are discerni...