Dear Mr. J. Warner Wallace: the atheists of the world thank you for your contribution

 This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

The Fact The Other Side Can Make A Case Doesn’t Mean It’s True

So the fact that the Christians can make a case doesn't mean its true.  Congratulations, genius.

 I’m sometimes surprised to see how quickly young Christians are shaken when they first encounter a well-articulated objection (or opposing claim) from someone denying the truth of the Christian worldview.

Maybe that's because you preach a false gospel, and therefore, without any hope of the Holy Spirit giving a shit about them, they actually don't have anything more to facilitate their false Christian beliefs, except the marketing gimmicks that you refer to as "apologetics" or "cold case Christianity".

When we first started taking missions trips to the University of California at Berkeley, I watched my Christian students to see how they would react when confronted by impassioned atheists. Some were genuinely disturbed by what they heard. Protected by their parents for most of their young Christian lives, it was as if they weren’t even aware of alternative explanations.

That is true, i.e., Christianity's survival through the years was due to the private nature of parents teaching kids to be Christian in outlook.  It isn't like in the last 20 centuries Christian parents always made sure their kids were apprised of the alternative explanations equally as much as the "Christian" explanation.  We have to wonder how many kids would have grown up and given up their Christian faith if they had been exposed to the alternative explanations during childhood just as much as they were exposed to the "bible". 

Now, as juniors and seniors in high school, they were hearing the “other side” for the first time, and the atheist ambassadors we placed before them were eloquent, passionate and thorough. Many of these students wondered how these atheists could be wrong, given the length and earnest (even zealous) nature of their presentations.

That's also the basis that many Christians have for attending the church they currently do.  They couldn't give two fucks about spiritual progress or theological accuracy, they only care about hearing something that sounds nice. 

But after sitting in hundreds of criminal trials of one nature or another, I’ve learned something important: The fact the opposition can make a case (even an articulate, robust and earnest case), doesn’t mean it’s true.

Thanks for providing atheists with another justification to disbelieve Christianity even when they hear some apologist making a "case" for it.  You'll get proper credit in my future books.

Several years ago, I attended the sentencing hearing for one of my cold-case murder investigations. Douglas Bradford killed Lynne Knight in 1979 and we convicted him of this murder in August of 2014, nearly 35 years (to the day) after the murder. The investigation and trial appeared on Dateline (in an episode entitled, “The Wire”). I arrested Bradford in 2009 and he retained Robert Shapiro (famed attorney from the O.J. Simpson case). Shapiro and his co-counsel, Sara Caplan, presented a robust defense of Bradford, and he thanked both of them during the sentencing hearing. Along the way, Shapiro and Caplan articulated the opposing case thoroughly and with conviction. In addition, Bradford made a short, emphatic statement of his own at his sentencing, saying: ““The murder of Lynne Knight is a terrible tragedy. I want you to hear me very clearly now. I did not murder Lynn Knight. I am an innocent man, wrongly convicted. I’m mad as hell. I’m paying for somebody else’s crime. This is a horrendous, horrendous miscarriage of justice.” That’s a pretty direct (and perhaps convincing) denial, and these were the first words any of us heard from Bradford during the entire investigation, arrest, and trial (Bradford refused to talk to us and did not take the stand in his own defense).

So, Wallace, does God think Bradford is guilty of that murder, yes or no?  Or is god so concerned about giving truth to sincere seekers that he gives you nothing but fortune cookie "answers" in an ancient book, and leaves you nothing to discern his will for today, except your imperfect ability to interpret future coincidences?

His attorneys were even more passionate and direct in their statements to the jury during the criminal trial and the sentencing hearing. They spent hours articulating the many reasons why the case against Bradford was deficient and inadequate as they continued to proclaim his innocence.

My cold-cases are incredibly difficult to investigate and communicate to a jury.

But the Bradford testimony was only 40 years old.  Biblical testimony is between 4,000 and 2,000 years old...yet you act like the biblical testimony is so conclusive no rational person could disagree with the Christian interpretation of it LOL.

Most people, including Christian apologists, think personal testimony constitutes direct evidence...the problem being that Bradford never explained to the police how he could know, at the time of the first interview, that she had died.

Remember, these cases were originally unsolved, and for good reason. There were no eyewitnesses to any of my murders and none of my cases benefit from definitive forensic evidence like DNA (or even fingerprints). My cases are entirely circumstantial.

But the circumstantial evidence of Bradford's guilt is far more compelling than YOUR circumstantial case for god's existence and the bible's alleged "reliability".   Bradford's appeal admits that all of Lynne's prior boyfriends were cooperative, except Bradford, who confessed in 1979 "she was dead and was somebody he wanted to put out of his mind."  He also initially said he bought a necklace for her, then changed his story and said he merely helped her select it for purchase.  His alibi was that he was sailing at the time of the murder, at night, without lights, and because the engine died, he had to row a 4,600 lb boat back to shore using a 4 foot paddle. Upon case-reopening, another woman Bradford subsequently dated said Bradford mislead her about how the nurse (Lynne) he had dated years prior had died.  See here.

Defense attorneys love to argue against these kinds of cases, and I have seen many attorneys present compelling alternative explanations over the years. Jurors have sometimes been moved by these defense presentations. But none of them have been fooled. I never lost a single case in my career as a cold-case detective, in spite of the robust arguments of the defense attorneys involved.

Probably because the cold-case evidence you were dealing with was more compelling than the dogshit you call "apologetics".

A few years ago I investigated another cold-case (this time from the early 1980’s). Michael Lubahn killed his wife, Carol, and disposed of her body, telling her family she left him. This case also went unsolved for over 30 years. Lubahn’s attorney whole-heartedly believed Lubahn was innocent and passionately defended him in front of the jury. Unlike Bradford, Lubahn actually took the stand during his defense and repeatedly denied he was involved in any way. Lubahn and his attorney articulated their case ardently and earnestly, and Lubahn’s attorney presented a lengthy closing argument in support of his position. But, like Bradford, none of it was true. At his sentencing hearing, Lubahn eventually confessed to killing Carol. His attorney was dumbfounded. He truly believed Lubahn was innocent and had crafted a through defense. But Michael Lubahn was a killer all along (this case was also covered by Dateline in an episode entitled “Secrets in the Mist”).

And if we had eyewitness-confessions to Jesus' resurrection, you might have a point.  But since even Mike Licona refuses to use Matthew's and JOhn's resurrection narrative in his "bedrock" case, its pretty safe for atheists to conclude that the two gospels having the most prima-facie claim to apostolic authorship have too many authorship problems to pretend that clever little witticisms about "papias" and "Irenaeus" are going to solve anything.

Paul was definitely on the defensive and speaking to his gospel-enemeies the Judaizers, so we have a right to expect that he would make the best possible case that his view of salvation was what Jesus really taught...which means we have a right to expect that Paul would have made clear in Galatians that he had a vision of Jesus (Acts 26:19), at least.  But the closest Paul comes is 1:16 where he said either God was pleased to reveal his son "to" Paul or "in" Paul.  Paul's unwillingness to relate what Jesus said is a silence that screams.

Worse, Paul's trying to draw upon the OT for all Christian doctrine (2nd Timothy 2:15-16) is completely unexpected if he seriously thought the biological Jesus's theological teachings were the least bit important.  But what does Paul quote Jesus on?  The last supper, and the fact that laborers are worthy of their wages LOL.  

I’ve come to expect the opposing defense team will present a well-crafted, earnest, engaging, and seemingly true argument. But an argument isn’t evidence.

So then Christian argument isn't evidence either.  Unless you are a Pentecostal and insist that the doctrine of fairness is from the devil?

I’ve come to expect the opposing defense team will present a well-crafted, earnest, engaging, and seemingly true argument.

I've expected the same from apologists, yet never get it.  Instead I'm given some fool who thinks the rules of historiography are the 28th book of an inerrant bible, who would rather not talk about how bible inerrancy could serve a purpose given that those who believed it for centuries were not helped to be more like-minded it it.

But an argument isn’t evidence. Since that first trip to Berkeley, I’ve been teaching this to my students. Don’t be shaken just because the other side can articulate a defense.

Thanks for the advice.  So the next time an atheist hears a Christian apologist making an "articulate defense", YOUR advice to the atheist would be "don't be shaken just because the other side can articulate a defense" :) 

Wow, Wallace, I would never have expected that you desired to serve the devil by giving atheists more reason to stay confident when facing "articulate defenses" by Christian apologists.  But thanks again.

This happens all the time in criminal trials, even when our defendants are obviously (and even admittedly) guilty. Be ready in advance for passionate, robust, articulate, alternative explanations. But remember, the fact the other side can make a case doesn’t mean it’s true.

And YOU remember that the fact that YOU can make a case doesn't mean its true.  And yet you refuse to remember this, and you pretend as if the fact you can make a case requires that the Protestant Trinitarian evangelical interpretation of the NT is the only reasonable one.

However, you have neglected to note that juries often deadlock because even when people are discussing modern-day testimony, and heard the original eyewitnesses live in person, jurors can still be reasonable to disagree about the significance of such testimony.  If that is true for modern court cases where evidence is relatively recent and is put through an authentication process, you are a fucking fool to pretend that 2,000 year old testimony from people who viewed each other as heretics (Gal. 1:6-8) can only be reasonably interpreted one way.   Especially given that first 100 year gap in which the gospel texts were the most fluid, but for which we have no manuscript evidence.  We know that other Christian groups had gospels, and we'll never know whether and to what extent they actually claimed the same as the orthodox that their gospels were  apostolic in origin.

Wallace, if you believe you have some methodology that enables you to discover which theory of a case is the most reasonable, why don't you sell your ideas to America's court system?  After all, we wouldn't need juries, because any judge who purchased all of Wallace's marketing gimmicks would be able to tell which theory of the case is more reasonable.  Right?

If you can be so sure that only one interpretation of 2,000 year old testimony is correct, surely your methodology makes it a snap to correctly interpret testimony that has come into existence within the last 50 years?

Gee, Wallace, you have all these capabilities, yet nothing you offer Christians enables them to resolve their differences of opinion about how to interpret the bible, even though all of Paul's theology constitutes "testimony".

Cold Case Christianity: Answering Wallace on miracles

This is my reply to questions asked by J. Warner Wallace.

Are There Any Good Reasons to Believe in Miracles? (Video)

Posted: 19 Jun 2020 06:15 AM PDT

Why are we so resistant to the notion of miracles?

First, given you are talking to Christians, it's funny you should ask that.   Are many Christians infected with the disease of miracle-skepticism?  Or is miracle-skepticism more aligned with reality and common sense than you are willing to admit?

Second, it doesn't matter if God exists and performed miracles through Jesus.   Deuteronomy 13 justifies a skeptic's suspicion toward Jesus even if the skeptic feels comfortable admitting Jesus rose from the dead:

 1 "If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder,
 2 and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,'
 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deut. 13:1-3 NAU)

What problem does Deuteronomy 13 create for Christians?  Easy:  God's approval of Jesus cannot be automatically deduced from the mere fact that Jesus performed genuinely supernatural miracles, he could still possibly be a false prophet whom God has empowered in order to "test" Israel.

I don't see how the Christian could convincingly solve that problem, as the question is "How can we know which workers of genuinely supernatural miracles are approved of by God, and which workers of genuinely supernatural miracles are merely false prophets God is using to test us?"

The natural answer of somebody like Wallace would be "if the wonder-worker teaches in harmony with the bible, then he is approved by God."

But in practical life, "teaching in harmony with the bible" is really "teaching in harmony with my interpretation of the bible" (don't pretend the subjectivity is non-problematic, google "New perspective on Paul" and discover how easily the Protestants can be misled for hundreds of years.  Google Arminianism and Calvinism.  Consider Norman Geisler's criticism of other inerantist evangelical Christian scholars in "Vital Issues in the Inerrancy Debate".  Christians who say the bible's teachings are "clear" are high on crack).

So, naturally, apologists like Wallace would blindly assume that if the wonder-worker taught the Trinity, salvation by grace alone, Jesus' full deity and humanity, Wallace would assume such wonder-worker was approved by God.

But that makes things impossibly complex for the skeptic.  Wallace is not god.  His belief that the bible teaches the Trinity is not infallible, but subject to revision.  Norman Geisler left the inerrantist Evangelical Theological Society for their progressively growing more and more liberal.  Wallace cannot seriously say any of the doctrines he currently views as biblical, he will continue viewing as biblical in the future.  The point is that there is no serious hope if "theology" is the only way we can tell whether a worker of genuine miracles is approved of by God, or merely a false prophet god is using to "test" us.

What presuppositions keep us from inferring the miraculous?

The same presuppositions that keep J. Warner Wallace skeptical of somebody's story that god causes their goldfish to speak audibly and teach them theology whenever nobody else is around.  We already know that fish don't talk, and we already know that god will never cause a fish to talk. Agreed, my fellow David Hume disciple?

If not, then perhaps you'd like to go on record as the most gullible idiot in creation, and insist that you wouldn't make any positive or negative judgments about talking-fish miracle claims until you could examine the evidence?  

What presuppositions keep us from inferring the miraculous?

The uniformity of nature is not merely what skeptics use to justify miracle-skepticism, its also what lay behind any and ALL skepticism toward ANY claim.  The only way you could justify suspicion toward anybody's testimony is if you thought some of their testimony ran contrary to the uniformity of nature that YOU personally experience.  If you leave little Johnny at home alone and tell him not to eat the cookies, then you come home and find several cookies missing, what is the reason you suspect Johnny's profession of ignorance is a lie?  Easy:  in your uniform experience, the child's disobedience is far more likely than some other theory, like fairies, gremlins or burgers with unexpectedly excellent timing.

Suppose Johnny has cookie crumbs all around his mouth.  Why do you interpret that evidence to mean that Johnny's claim of ignorance is false?  Because in your uniform experience, crumbs are more likely to get on our mouth due to our conscious choice to eat something, not because the God empowered the devil to manufacture fraudulent crumbs to make us suffer unjustly and thus build up our faith.  The trifle that crumbs can possibly get on your mouth by means other than your conscious choice to eat, does precisely nothing to make you back off and take more time to investigate Johnny's excuse.  The crumbs around his mouth are only capable of one reasonable interpretation despite the possibility that the devil made him do it.

If there is a possibility that god views the Catholic church as theologically correct, there is a possibility that God is angry with those who reject the Catholic church, so, shouldn't non-Catholic Christians prioritize investigation of Catholic miracles, the way the skeptic's possible punishment from God should motivate them to prioritize investigation of Jesus' resurrection?  Yet no doubt Wallace and most other Protestants became comfortable to confidently conclude the Catholic church was heretical, and in most cases before they even knew that "apology" meant "defense".  Yet these lovers of limited research will hypocritically condemn skeptics who similarly draw negative conclusions about Jesus after conducting similarly limited investigation.

If you are satisfied based on your own limited investigation that Catholicism is false form of Christianity, then you cannot fault skeptics who similarly do a limited investigation into apostle Paul's religion, and conclude it is a false form of Christianity.  If you don't have to bat out of the ballpark every last trifle a Catholic theologian could conjure up, neither do skeptics have to bat out of the ballpark every last trifle a Christian apologist could conjure up. I've been investigating Jesus' resurrection for 35 years.  How long have you been investigating Catholicism?  I've learned enough to smash any Christian apologist in any debate right now.  How well do you think you'd do, Wallace, if forced to debate a Roman Catholic apologist right now?

What “miraculous” aspects of the universe are commonly accepted even by people who reject the miraculous?

I believe the universe has always existed, it did not "begin".  I have excellent rebuttal to Aquinas' Five Ways, i have scientific reasons to deny the Big Bang theory, and even some inerrantist Christian groups deny the Big Bang, such as AiG and ICR.  Philosophical attempts to show that the universe once didn't exist, are completely absurd. 

Cold Case Christianity: we are in control

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled:

Is God in Control or Are We in Control?

Posted: 13 Apr 2020 05:36 AM PDT 

I’m often asked where I “land” on the issue of God’s sovereignty and human freedom. How much free will do we actually have as humans? If God is all powerful and all knowing, if God knows the end from the beginning, if God has predestined us to come to faith, doesn’t it follow that humans are simply along for the ride? 

Rush has the answer:  Attention all planets of the Solar Federation:  we have assumed control...we have assumed control. (the All the World's a Stage album had the best version...RIP Neil Peart).

But seriously, a simple logically deductive syllogism shows libertarian freewill cannot exist if god's foreknowledge is infallible.

Anything God foreknows, is incapable of failing (dictionary definition of infallible)
God foreknows that Julie's will eat a candy bar tomorrow.
Therefore, Julie's eating a candy bar tomomrrow is incapable of failing.

There are only three ways to refute a deductive syllogism:  prove premise 1 is wrong, prove premise 2 is wrong, or prove the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow.

Sure, premise one could be wrong, but if so, then the doctrine of God's infallible foreknowledge is false.

As a Christian, it’s clear to me that God is powerful enough to accomplish his goals without limit (see Daniel 4:35, Romans 9:15-16, Ephesians 1:5-6, and Romans 1:9-11). I call this power of God to accomplish whatever He wants the “Make Sure” Will of God.

But then if God has any will beyond the "make sure" crap, then he is sort of like a drunk woman, preferrng to be uncertain.  I'll pass.

But if God is in complete control of every aspect of our lives, how do we answer the following questions?
 When people fail to come to faith, is it God who is preventing them?

If you stand around doing nothing while a child in yoru custody fails to use chemicals correctly and endures injury, is it YOU who is preventing their proper use?  If not, you must think we should get rid of our system of civil law, which charges people all the time with "negligence" (i.e., failure to act when acting was within one's power and acting would have prevented an injury without causing another)

 When evil happens in the world, is it God who is responsible?

Read Deuteronomy 28:15-63, then you tell me what is implied by your 2nd Timothy 3:16 trust that such scripture remains profitiable for doctrine, reproof and correction TODAY.

How could God ever hold us responsible for anything?

The same way we capture a wild animal on the loose in the neighborhood.  It's inability to control its dangerous desires doesn't mean we are obligated to turn away.

Is the ‘will of God’ a divine plan for our lives?

As a Christian bible-believer that's YOUR problem. You cannot show from the bible that God has a plan for any particular individual, and you cannot show that the bible has the least bit of relevance to modern humanity beyond the useless trifle of being a historical curiosity.  The question is whether God gives a shit about you at all.  The answer from actual reality is "no".  The answer form the bible only works for the people to who those books were originally intended.  Sucks to be you.

While the Bible affirms the sovereignty and power of God, it also provides examples when God does not seem to be able to accomplish something He desires. In Matthew 23:37-38, Jesus seems to be unable gather Israel because they were unwilling.

Agreed.  But as an atheist, I deny biblical inerrancy, and thereore do not expereince any compulsion to decide whether the bible teaches Arminianism or Calvnism.  It teaches both, which means the bible contradicts itself on doctrine.

In 2 Peter 3:8-10, We are told that God does not wish that anyone of us should perish (but that all of us should come to repentance), yet we know that many people in our world will NEVER accept Jesus, never come to repentance, and simply will not be saved. So what’s up with God’s sovereignty?

A better questoini would be:  Why should be blindly assume an apostle's theological viewpoint is necessarily correct?  Especially an apostle who denied Jesus three times, and who, even after experiencing the gift of the Holy Ghost in Acts 2, was condemned as a moral hypocrite by Paul.  Methinks the inerrantist's trust in biblical infallibility is just shy of foolhardy.  It is anything but realistic.

How can it be that something can be within ‘God’s will’ (God can desire something) yet He seems to be unable to make that something happen?

Easy, the bible contradicts itself.  Will that answer cause J. Warner Wallace to stop using Jesus to attract attention to himself?

I think the Bible actually describes two kinds of “will of God”.

That's a sobering admission, coming from an inerrantist.  No, you won't be "haronizing" freewill with God's sovereignty anytime soon, will you.

The first is what I call the “Make Sure” Will of God, the second is what I have come to call the “Sure Wants” Will of God.

Then god is fucking stupid, since if he "sure wants" something and has the "make sure" power to get the job done, then only he is to blame if he refuses to resolve the problem by exercise of his powers.

God wants all of us to be saved;

You cannot show that anything in the NT was intended to apply to modern-day people.  If we can show the NT authors intended to address 1st century people, YOU acquire the burden of showing they intended to address anybody else.  No sophistry about how God can intend a wider audience than the human author intended.  If the authors didn't intend something, then since the author was your only hope of showing the author's divine inspiration, any god who allegedly inspired them also didn't intend that something.  The reaosnableness of that inference is not going to disappear merely because you can preach about how God can have greater plans for a person than their own plans.

He wants all of us to come to faith in Jesus;

Even the people whom he ordained by his providence to live in times and circumstances preventing them from hearing about Jesus? 

He wants all of us to reflect his moral precepts;

He wants us to use fire to kill little girls for engaging in pre-marital sex (Leviticus 21:9)? Or did some dickhead "apologist" on the internet suddenly discover how easily the "satire" excuse can be exploited to defend biblical "inerrancy"?

He wants all of us to love one another.

Even those whom he instructs us to hate (Deut. 23:6)?

But he also knows that none of this is truly possible unless each and every one of us is allowed to have the ‘freedom’ to love, obey and follow (see Mark 3:34-35, 1 John 2:17, Ephesians 6:5-6, Romans 12:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 and 1 Peter 2:15-17). Without ‘free will’, humans are simply robots who respond according to pre-programming rather than from a position of true love and obedience.

you are assuming true love cannot exist without the libertarian notion of freewill existing.  Not true.  obviously dogs and lower mammals love their young, yet you would probably argue that as creatures of instinct they do not have "freewill".

You are also forgetting the deductive syllogism I started this post with.  If God's foreknowledge is infallible, then those human acts (such as love) that he foreknows are "incapable of failing", which logically prevents the person from withdrawing the love at the time God infallibly foreknows they will show that love.

Yes, it is God’s will that no one should be lost (it’s something that God ‘sure wants’),

Bullshit, the way he turns humans to carnage in the bible, god is quite capable of simply using his power to rescue you from anything.  Telling yourself maybe God allowed you to do evil because of Frank Turek's "Ripple-Effect" sophistry is mere self-delusion.  The ripple-effect theory does nothing to render the atheist theory of evil "unreasonable".

but this does not mean that God will ‘make sure’ that all come to faith.

Then he is fucking stupid and his problems are his own fault.

Yes, it is God’s will that no evil should exist in the world (it’s something that God ‘sure wants’), but this does not mean that God will ‘make sure’ that evil is eliminated.

Yes, it is dad's will that his baby son not get raped, (it's protection dad 'sure wants'), but this does not mean that dad will 'make sure' that such rape possibility is eliminated.  Nice going.

Yes, it is God’s will that we should live a certain way and seek to know His heart and character, but this does not mean that he will ‘make sure’ that no one behaves immorally.

I'd say you've ventured further out into the surf than atheism can permit.  This Arminian/Calvinist debate is YOUR problem.

There are two kinds of ‘will of God’ passages in the scripture. Some describe God’s sovereignty and some describe God’s moral character and desire for our lives.

And there is no reason to think the bible is inerrant.  So there's nothing unreaosnable in assuning the bible gave rise to churches with contradictory theology, beause the bible itself teaches contradictory theology.

While it is certainly within God’s power to eliminate all evil, to control our behavior and to allow none of us the possibility of rejecting Him, to do so would eliminate the possibility for something precious to God: the ability to love. (I’ve written more on this in the section on Evil here at ColdCaseChristianity.com

So what's more important to god?  The criminal's ability to love?  Or the child's safety from rape?

Under God's stupid reasoning, America's love would be more god-like if jails removed their locks and incarcerated only those who chose to endure their punishment.  if God is going to let rapists and murders run free, how could we have less love than god if we also allowed such criminals the same freedom?  If God isn't going to stop evil, then it must be good to let evil exist.

Yes, it is God’s will that no one should be lost (it’s something that God ‘sure wants’), but this does not mean that God will ‘make sure’ that all come to faith.

You are only saying that because of the bible's contradictory statements, not because it is at all clear that this is in fact the case.  What a fool to pretend that so many ancient authors, seperated from each other by centuries, nevertheless wrote in perfect harmony about subjects philosphers have disagreed on for millenia.  Not even most Christian scholars accept biblical inerrancy!

How exactly do your musings do ANYTHING to disturb atheism?

Cold Case Christianity: Did Jesus think he was God?

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled:

Quarantine Questionnaire: Did Jesus Think He Was God?

Posted: 07 Apr 2020 12:00 PM PDT

In this video, J. Warner discusses the language Jesus used when describing Himself. Did His words demonstrate what He believed about Himself?

But as I've already demonstrated ad nauseum, many conservative Christian scholars think the Christ-sayings in John's gospel reflect more John's theological views and less what Jesus "actually" said.  So trying to establish high Christology by using John's gospel is foolish.

Mike Licona might argue that you can get Jesus beng God out of Mark, the earliest gospel, but I don't see the point.  Yes, people before the 1st century believed the gods could come down to the them in the likeness of man (Acts 14:11), so the skeptic who tries to argue that the NT's Christology is only high beacuse it is late, is not doing her homework.

At the same time, low Christology can be gleaned from Paul (Jesus was declared the son of God with power by resurrectoin from the dead, Romans 1:5).  Fundies will carp that this doesn't imply Paul thought Jesus lacked divine attributes until the resurrection, but Paul doesn't show much interest in Jesus' earthly life, so fundies have no basis to think Paul thought Jesus was always Lord from birth.  Fundies will cite the kenosis in Phil. 2:5-8, but the "mind" that is spoken of is the one which was in "Christ Jesus", the name given to him at his birth, but not before.  Paul is likely referring to the attitude Jesus had as a man on earth, not as the prexistent logos.

Mark 6:5 said Jesus "could" not do a miracle, but the parallel in Matthew 13:58 changes this to "did" not do a miracle, that is, Matthew the later author is changing Mark's earlier negation of Jesus' abilities, with a phrase that no longer implicates Jesus' abilities.  That is, the earlier version of Christianity had a lower Christology.  We can only wonder how many other changes scribes made to the text of Mark during the first 250 years for which we have no manuscripts, to "assimilate" it back to Matthew.  I think this is the part where desperate inerrantists suddenly discover that the Synoptic Problem doesn't exist, and the similarities of Matthew and Mark imply nothing more than their drawing upon a common core of oral tradition. 

Except that wiggling out of the problem like that doesn't render the skeptical hypothesis unreasonable, it just show you have the same face-saving capabilities that the Mormons have.

Furthermore, the ideas in the Sermon on the Mount are often unrelated despite following each other in chronological fashion.  Most scholars explain this by saying the author has simply made a pastiche of various sayings Jesus spoke in various different circumstances, and grouped such aphorisms into one bunch.

That is, most scholars think the gospel authors replaced the original context of the Christ-sayings with the author's own created literary context, so that we can never really be confident that the "context" we read today is accurately reflecting the oral "context" Jesus originally spoke those words in. 

That creates a further problem:  the gospel authors did not care about "original" context as much as today's inerrantists do, and this justifies the atheist to infer the sources are not sufficiently reliable to attempt getting confident conclusions from.  There was a textually dark period between Jesus' life and the earliest manuscripts, and nobody has any idea how many times scribes in that critical period did what Metzger and Aland contantly accuse them of ('assimilating' one gospel statement with another) so that for all we know, the degree to which the gospels currently agree on facts has more to do with post-authorship emendation, and less to do with what the original authors actually said. 

Cold Case Christianity: Yes, the resurrection is possibly a late legend

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Quarantine Questionnaire: Is the Resurrection Account a Late Legend?

J. Warner April 3, 2020

Two answers from an atheist:

No, and the rumor about Paul, held by "thousands" of Jewish Christians, that he flouted Mosaic law, also wasn't a late legend.  Acts 21:18-24.  As long as you say that rumor was false, you agree that falsity can exist in the early church, without being "legend" or "late".

Yes...it is reasonable to say the resurrection appearance stories in the gospels are late legends for two reasons:  a) it is reasonable to agree with most Christian scholars that Mark is the earliest published gospel, and b) it is reaosnable to agree with most Christian scholars that the long ending of Mark was a later interpolation.  If both premises are reasonable, then it is reasonable to draw the inference that the earliest form of the resurrectin story was limited to the women hearing about Jesus' resurrection solely from some unidentified man at the suspiciously opened tomb.

Certain dickhead apologists will scream that Mark's resurrection appearance ending would have been necessarily implied due to the oral preaching behind that gospel, is foolish:  the other three gospel authors give plenty of resurrection appearance detail, so it is far from obvious that the reason a gospel author leaves out a detail is because he is expecting the originally intended reader to rely on the oral preaching to fill in the blanks left by the written account.

And now a point by point reply to Wallace:

How can we be sure that the story of Jesus wasn’t changed over time?

You can't:  reconstructing history from ancient sources only supplies probabilities, especially in cases where the ancient assertions are by no means "obvious" and not corroborated by other verifiable details. No, you aren't proving John's resurrection testimony reliable by nothing that archaeologists have found the Pool of Siloam.  What are you?  6?  What are you gonna say next?  Mommy loves you because she took you to McDonalds? Grow the fuck up and quit committing the fallacy of hasty generalization.

How do we know that the virgin conception, the miracles and the Resurrection weren’t added to the story late?

First, your question is irrelevant.  Jesus made clear that christian discipleship depended on generations of Christian leaders passing on for posterity all the things which he had taught the original apostles (see the part of the Great Commission nost people miss, Matthew 28:20).  Not only did Jesus never say one damn thing about his virgin birth, he castigated another person who's comment to him had created the perfect justification for him to mention it (Luke 11:27-28).

Second, given that most Christian scholars agree Mark's gospel is the earliest and lacks the virgin birth narrative despite how its content would have strongly supported Mark's "Son of God" theme, it's reasonable to infer either a) Mark never heard of the VB (justifying the inference it was late) or b) Mark knew of it but considered it fiction (justifying the inference that it is fiction).  The third option screamed about by apologists, c) Mark knew the VB story was true but "chose to exclude" it for his own reasons, cannot be demonstrated with any degree of probability.  Since the inference that Mark never heard of the VB or had rejected it as fiction does rest upon a probability argument, the skeptic has a probability and the apologist has only possibility.  So skeptics are reasonable to draw the negative inference even if there's always that trifling "possibility" that the VB was true.

Similar arguments could be made on the basis of John the latest gospel.  He too doesn't mention the virgin birth, despite how it would have strongly supported his high Christology.  That makes the skeptical hypothesis reasonable, and our reasonableness therein doesn't require that we bat out of the ballpark every stupid trifle any apologist could possibly conjure up. 

Beasley-Murray refuses to decide the matter:

The external evidence for the pl. is overwhelming, and most adopt it without hesitation…The decision is more difficult than is generally acknowledged, and we leave it open.

Beasley-Murray, G. R. (2002). Vol. 36: Word Biblical Commentary : John.
Word Biblical Commentary (Page 2). Dallas: Word, Incorporated

Inerrantist Christian scholar Borchert does not understand why some scholars, despite knowing the plural is the correct reading, still insist the passage is about the virgin birth:

Some scholars have argued that the verse is describing the virginal conception of Jesus, and they have chosen to read the singular form instead of the plural (haimatōn) “bloods.” But the textual evidence for such a reading is virtually nonexistent, and the logic of the text definitely argues against such a view. 

No Greek MSS support the singular reading, yet M. Ē. Boismard, in St. John’s Prologue (Westminster: Newman, 1957), s.v., and others have argued for such a view. Cf. D. M. Crossan, “Mary’s Virginity in St. John—An Exegetical Study,” Marianum 19.1 (1957): 115–26, and “Mary and the Church in John 1:13, ” Bible Today 1.20 (1965): 1318–24. Beasley-Murray (John, 13) relying on E. C. Hoskyns and F. N. Davey (The Fourth Gospel [London: Faber & Faber, 1947], 164–65), thinks that even though the plural is clearly the correct reading and even though the virgin birth may not be in mind, the incarnation could have been in view here. I find this argument difficult to accept.

Borchert, G. L. (2001, c1996). Vol. 25A: John 1-11 (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 118). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Bruce Metzger, otherwise considered by conservative Christian apologists to be the last word on NT textual variation, dashes cold water on the hopes of those fools who insist John 1:13 is talking about Jesus' virgin birth:

Although a number of modern scholars (including Zahn, Resch, Blass, Loisy, R. Seeburg, Burney, Büchsel, Boismard, Dupont, and F. M. Braun)³ have argued for the originality of the singular number, it appeared to the Committee that, on the basis of the overwhelming consensus of all Greek manuscripts, the plural must be adopted, a reading, moreover, that is in accord with the characteristic teaching of John. The singular number may have arisen either from a desire to make the Fourth Gospel allude explicitly to the virgin birth or from the influence of the singular number of the immediately preceding auvtou/.
--------Metzger, Textual Commentary, Page 169

Furthermore, most English translations don't use the singular, they use the plural, so that 1:13 is referring to Christians, not Jesus:

 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,
 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (Jn. 1:12-13 NAU) 

 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,
 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. (Jn. 1:12-13 NRS) 

 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--
 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. (Jn. 1:12-13 NIV) 

 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (Jn. 1:12-13 NKJ)

But no, I'm sure that because fundie Chrstianity is dogmatic by nature, fundies who are frightened at the prospect of not being able to harmonize all NT statements with all NT statements, will insist skeptics are "dumb" or "morons" for adopting the plural in harmony with many conservative evangelical Christian scholars.

I wake up in cold sweats in the middle of the night, shivering with fear, wondering whether my above-cited arguments are sound.  I'm also a millionaire.

Furthermore, given that out of 27 NT books, only two even mention the virgin birth, it is perfectly reasonable to infer that the earliest Christians did not think that part of Jesus' life was too important. 

Why would Paul think the resurrection proved Jesus to be the Son of God, but the VB wasn't worth discussing?  If we are to presume Paul was a modern-day inerrantist who trusted Joseph's and Mary's stories about portents during her pregnancy as necessarily true, wouldn't it follow that Paul would find the VB story equally as supportive of his view of Christ as the resurrection?  And given that Christianity had major obstacles to getting started, wouldn't shameless promoter like Paul insist on using ALL of his guns?

And don't forget, Paul asserted that Jesus' flesh came from David's "seed" (Romans 1:3, neither genealogy of Jesus makes Mary a descendant of David, but they specify Joseph was a descendant of David, Luke 2:4), and further, that Jesus' divine sonship was declared due to his rising from the dead (v. 4).  Had Paul approved of the VB stories, he would likely would have cited the VB and not just Jesus' resurrection as the basis for Jesus' divine sonship.  That naturalistic problem looms large also in Acts 13:33, Jesus was divinely begotten at his resurrection...how many times was he begotten? Another sign that the speaker (Paul) did not think Jesus recieved such divine titles any earlier.

I'm quite aware of the stupid trifles of internet apologists concerning Mark 6:3 and have answered them here.  Since Christians themselves cannot even agree on whether the VB story is true, or if so, whether it qualifies as essential or non-essential doctrine, the skeptic is certainly reasonable to consider it nothing more than trifling about the details of fairy tales.  You don't know the credibililty of Matthew or Luke, you have no fucking clue how they gained thier material.  Your hypothesis that they asked eyewitnesses is no less conjectural than the skeptic's theory that many gospel stories are just made up

Cold Case Christianity: No, The Existence and Nature of Hell Cannot Be Defended

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity: Can The Existence and Nature of Hell Be Defended? (Free Bible Insert)

Posted: 03 Feb 2020 01:34 AM PST 

While the Bible clearly describes Hell as a reality,

No, not "clearly", otherwise you wouldn't have 7th day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and other assorted "Annihiliationists" denying your view of hell as literal eternal conscious torment. 

many of our non-believing friends and family members are unsurprisingly repulsed by the idea. Why would God create such a place, and what would ever provoke Him to send people there?

Those of us who can tell that there is no such place, are not bothered by the stupidity involved in speculating about what an "infinite being" might desire.

As Christians, we know our ultimate authority is God’s Word, so it’s tempting to simply trust what God has revealed without any further philosophical investigation. But we can prepare ourselves for those who reject the authority or teaching of the Bible by examining the evidence from Scripture along with the rational explanations and philosophical foundations supporting the Biblical claims. God has commanded us to be ready to defend the tough truths of the Christian worldview as we share our hope in Jesus:
 1 Peter 3:15-16
…but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence

But Jesus never commanded any such "defense", and you will have an extrarodinarily difficult time pretending that the NT canon is equally as authoritative as Jesus' own words.  That canon testifies to the bumbling stupidity of the disciples, how the fuck would you know whether they understood correctly 30 years later any more than you can assume any Christian understands any biblical thing more correctly after 30 years?

BLIND FAITH, that's how.  Nothing which places skeptics under the least bit of intellectual compulsion.

So let’s take a look at some common objections to the existence and nature of Hell as we defend the truth of the Christian Worldview.

No, as you defend one particular interpretation of the bible, one among many within Christianity.

Objection One
Why Would A Good God Create Hell in the First Place?
The idea anything as vile and repulsive as Hell could come from a good God is a stumbling block for many people. In fact, Christian claims related to Hell are enough for some to reject the Christian God altogether. How could a supposedly good God create such a place?

It really doesn't do a lot of good to affirm god is morally 'good' but then to turn around and insist that what we identify as morally 'good' does not apply to God because of his infinitely mysterious ways.  Christians will blindly answer that the bible assures them God is good, but little girls also think fairy princesses are good. 

Mercy Requires Justice
The answer here is directly connected to the nature of God. The Christian God of the Bible is the perfect balance of mercy and justice.

Not when he threatens to cause men to rape women (Deuteronomy 28:30, Isaiah 13:15-17).  Not when he threatens to cause such rabid hunger as to force people into parental cannibalism (Deut. 28:56-57).  Such a god sounds more like a disgruntled Iron Age barbarian than an infinite creator who can cause everybody to have the same physiology as an elderly person, so that they still have freewill but have far less inclination to commit most of the popular "sins".

The Bible repeatedly describes God with these characteristics:

Why should that matter to a skeptic?  Would you quote the book of Mormon to a Oneness Pentecostal?

The Merciful Nature of God
The Bible describes God’s loving, merciful nature. God is loving (1 John 4:8), gracious (Exodus 33:19, 1 Peter 2:1-3), and merciful (Exodus 34:6, James 5:11)

Which mean precisely nothing once you insist "mercy" be redefined because God's ways are mysterious.  If 'mercy" isn't supposed to mean what it normally means in normal every day discourse, then using that word with people who are not already brainwashed into your cult constitutes deception.  You all use the same words, but the Christians supply then with quite different defintiions...because God's ways are mysterious.

The Just Nature of God
The Bible also describes God’s holy, just nature. God is holy (Psalms 77:130), just (Nehemiah 9:33, 2 Thessalonians 1:6-7), hates sin (Psalms 5:5-6), and punishes sinners (Matthew 25:45-46)

It also says he desires to burn to death underage girls who engage in premarital sex in their father's homes.  Leviticus 21:9.  If they married early back then, then the likely reason she is having illicit sex "in her father's house" is because she isn't old enough to move out or get married yet.  If the daughter of a priest was old enough to be married or otherwise had her own house, there would be little reason for her to conduct illicit sex in her father's house.  So it is certainly reasonable, even if not infallible, to interpret the sinful girl in Leviticus 21:9, who must be burned to death, as prepubescent.

The God of the Bible is described as loving, gracious and merciful. At the same time, however, He is described as holy and just; hating sin and punishing sinners. While we might prefer to focus only on the merciful aspects of God’s nature, doing so would completely ignore God’s just nature.

But we learn to ignore god's need to impose justice from God himself, who is capable of ignoring his own need for justice:

 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
 14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die." (2 Sam. 12:13-14 NAU)

Gee, can your god seriously "take away" sin (here, the more heinous types like adultery and murder, which require the death penalty) with such a wave of his magic wand as this?  You will screech that God killed David's baby in an act of justice, but that would make God unjust because he previously said David's sin had been "taken away", hence, there was no justifiable "need" to impose a death-penalty on anybody.

And if you insist God killed David's baby to satisfy the divine need for 'justice' against David's sins, then congratulations, you just accused God of accepting child sacrifice as atonement for sin, the very thing you find so detestable among the Canaanites.

Mercy without justice is not mercy.

That's right, I cannot mercifully forgive you for stealing my bike, I'd also have to punch you in the face.

Mercy requires justice to have any meaning, and justice requires mercy to have any power. A loving God (if He is truly loving) would offer love tempered by justice.

And your god's love comes with the condition that he might kill your kids and spare you, if you commit adultery and murder.  No thank you.

A loving God would not allow injustice to go unpunished;

Then apparently a crime scene detective like you thinks there is no such thing as children who are kidnapped, killed and never found.

He would create both a Heaven and a Hell.

Then you could not possibly accuse a human being of being unjust if they imitated such a holy spectacle within the limits of their capabilities.

A loving God offers a path to relationship but the possibility of judgment should we refuse this relationship. One without the other is meaningless:

Nah, Jesus appears to have required next to nothing from his Gentile followers, his interaction with specific Gentile was very short, and Matthew 25:31-46 seems to support the conclusion that even people who have no faith will be saved solely by their good humanitarian deeds.

Objection:
Why Would A Good God Create Hell in the First Place?

I don't object that way.

Response:
A loving God would not be loving if He did not punish evil. Mercy would have no meaning if it was not applied with justice.

Well God isn't punishing most of the evil in world history, so what are you gonna do now, invoke eschatology? Someday god will make everything better?  You sound like one of the people trapped below deck on the sinking Titantic, the hope of the hopeless.

Objection Two
Why Doesn’t a Loving God Make Sure Everyone Goes to Heaven?
The idea everyone is eventually reunited with a loving God in Heaven (regardless of what they believe or how they behave in this life) is called “Universalism”. It is certainly an attractive idea (for obvious reasons), and in a world of increasing relativism, it’s not surprising this kind of objection would be raised. After all, we are living in a culture where people increasingly believe “all paths lead to Heaven”. As Christians, we know this cannot be reconciled with the teaching of the Bible, and there are also good philosophical reasons to reject such an idea:
 A Compulsory Heaven Eliminates Free Will

That's right, and all those Christians called "5-Point Calvinists", such as Steve Hays of Triablogue, heartily agree.

People who want to go to Heaven (in spite of their free will choice to deny the existence of God), are true champions of the concept of free will.

Then count me out, I don't desire to be stuck for eternity with a moral monster.

After all, they want to express their freedom to deny there is any one exclusive truth about the nature of God (and the nature of Heaven). But these same people fail to realize the concept of Universalism actually denies free will altogether. If Heaven is the only destination waiting for us (based on the assumption everyone eventually ends up there) then Heaven is actually compulsory.

Given that I think compulsory heaven is better than "freewill" (sort of like it is better to force an adult out of the way of a speeding drunk than to just stand there and allow him to expereince the results of his "freewill choice"), I don't suffer from your reply.

In this view of Heaven, we have no choice about where we end up. Everyone is reunited with God. A compulsory Heaven actually denies the existence of free will, the very thing they cherish.

That's a weak argument as freewill doesn't exist anyway.

By offering (but not forcing) Heaven to those who freely choose to love Him, God is actually honoring and respecting the free will choices of all of us. He is treating us with the utmost respect and dignity.

Just like if you allow your stubborn child to drink bleach despite her knowing you have forbidden it, you'd be just as loving as god to just stand there doing nothing while the child chugs.  After all, you'd simply be honoring and respecting the child's freewill.  If you think kids don't have freewill, ask yourself why juvenile detention centers exist, and why parents impose punishment on disobedience kids.  Otherwise change the analogy from kids/bleach to "teen holding pistol to her head".  If your teen daughter was that far along in contemplating suicide, would you "respect and honor her freewill choice"? 

Then stop pretending that respecting and honoring another's freewill is a show-stopping argument for God's fairness and love, genius.

A Compulsory Heaven Would Include the “Unsuited”
Most of us would agree a holy place of eternal reward is simply not suited for people with a certain kind of character or for people with certain kinds of desires.

Which is irrelevant since the bible teaches in 1st Corinthians 15 that everybody who is saved shall undergo a major transformation of their "body" hence also their physiology and will thus never choose to sin agian, so if God imposed such resurrection-transformation on even those who don't believe, they too could be saved, and they would remain holy and suitable to heaven forever afterward.

Now we may not all agree on who should or shouldn’t be included in such a place, but most of us would hesitate while pondering the possibility people like Hitler (or lifelong pedophiles with murderous desires) should be rewarded eternally in Heaven. If there is a Heaven, it is surely unsuited for certain kinds of people.

But since God has no trouble literally blinding people with overwhelming experiences despite their concentrated hatred for Christainity (Paul's experience on the road to Damascus), God is quite capable of convincing obstinate truth-deniers to see and act in conformity with Christian doctrine.

A loving God would make Heaven possible for all of us while respecting the free will desire of some of us.

But as shown above, it can be unloving to respect another's freewill.

A loving God would reward those of us who have decided to choose Him while dealing justly with those of us who have decided to choose against Him. This is exactly the kind of God we worship:

But Calvinist Christians deny that "reward" is sensible, since you are not allowed to take credit for any good Christian thing you do.  Hence God is only "rewarding" himself for having caused a puppet like you to do whatever he wants.

Objection:
Why Doesn’t a Loving God Make Sure Everyone Goes to Heaven?
 Response:
A loving God honors our free will and our desire to choose Him, while dealing justly with those who have rejected Him.

No, Calvinists think you are a heretic.

Objection Three
Why Would A Loving God Punish Finite Sin With Infinite Torture?
For many people, the idea our finite, temporal choices here should merit an eternal punishment of infinite torment in Hell ellHellseems rather inequitable. The punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime. In fact, the punishment seems extraordinarily excessive. Why would God torture eternally those who have sinned temporally? Why would God torture infinitely those who have only sinned finitely?

Did you ever read the Pentateuch? In Mosaic law God's wrath against sin is continually and fully satisfied by less than infinite sacrifice.  Such as the blood of bulls and goats, Leviticus 16.

See also 2nd Samuel 12:13, where God can "just" get rid of somebody's sin by apparently no other means than the wave of a magic wand.  See something similar in Isaiah 6:6-7.  Not sure how stupid it is to think one's crack-induced hallcunation of heaven provides reliable data on doctrine.

Torment Is Not Torture
Part of the problem is the way we are using language here. The Bible says those who are delivered into Hell will be tormented, and the degree to which they suffer is described in illustrative language.

Not worried, those parts of the bible are metaphorical, and regardless a) you aren't going to show them to be the least bit divniely authoritative despite your belief that the NT canon is "inspired", and b) Jesus didn't give the impression that he thought Gentiles needed to be the least bit concerned about him.  His few interactions with specific Gentiles show he wasn't willing for them to tag along the way today's Christians would become his shadow if they could go back in time.

The torment is compared to an unquenchable fire. But the scripture never describes Hell as a place where God or His angels are actively torturing the souls of the rebellious. It is accurate to describe Hell as a place of separation from God where souls will be in ongoing conscious torment, but Hell is never described as a place of active torture at the hands of God or His agents.

 10 he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. (Rev. 14:10 NAU)

 But your point is moot anyway, since whatever you think you gain by trifling that God doesn't "actively" torment anybody in hell, you lose in Deuteronomy 28:15-63, where God DOES actively torment, for centuries, anybody who dares disobey him.

Instead, Hell is always described as a state of torment coming as the result of a choice on the part of the person who finds himself there. There is a difference between torture and torment. I can be continually tormented over a decision I made in the past, without being actively tortured by anyone.

Only of concern to fools who are worried the bible has the least bit of authority about it.  Not for me.

Duration of the Punishment is Not Based on Duration of the Crime
The torment experienced in Hell is eternal, and for some, this still seems inequitable compared to the finite and limited sins that we might commit here on earth.

It also seems ungodly in light of the OT which shows God continually being FULLY satisfied when a sin was atoned for by some temporal means.  For example the master who rapes a slave girl despite her being previously betrothed to another man, gains complete atonement by nothing more than giving a ram to the priest for sacrifice:

 20 'Now if a man lies carnally with a woman who is a slave acquired for another man, but who has in no way been redeemed nor given her freedom, there shall be punishment; they shall not, however, be put to death, because she was not free.
 21 'He shall bring his guilt offering to the LORD to the doorway of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt offering.
 22 'The priest shall also make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the LORD for his sin which he has committed, and the sin which he has committed will be forgiven him.
 (Lev. 19:20-22 NAU)

Your trifle that the forgiveness wasn't "total" is total bullshit.  The original recipients of the Law would never have had any reason to suspect that these assurances of divine atonement were less than fully expitatory:

 27 "But the bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall be taken outside the camp, and they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and their refuse in the fire.
 28 "Then the one who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water, then afterward he shall come into the camp.
 29 "This shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you;
 30 for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD. (Lev. 16:27-30 NAU)

So let’s address the issue of the duration of the punishment. First, it’s important for us to remember the severity of a crime does not always have anything to do with the amount of time it takes to commit it. If I embezzle five dollars a day from my boss over the course of five years, I might eventually get caught and pay the penalty for embezzling $32,500.00. In the State of California, this violates California Penal Code 503PC and the punishment might be anything from probation to a 5 year state prison sentence. But if I become enraged at a coworker and in the blink of an eye I lose my temper and kill him, the crime is now murder (187PC). This crime took much less than five years to commit. It only took five seconds. Yet the penalty for this crime is far greater. I will be serving at least 25 years to life, and I may even be put to death.

Only because the human authorities aren't able to resurrect the victim.  If they could, then murdering people would be about as criminal as messing up the covers on the bed.  It can be easily fixed.

The penalties for these two crimes are very different, and they have nothing to do with the duration of the actual criminal act. Instead, the severity of the crime is the key to determining its punishment. It’s the same way with God. The duration of the crime has little to do with the duration of the penalty. It’s all about the severity of the crime. “But are you trying to tell me that my disbelief alone is severe enough for me to deserve an eternal hell?” That question will be addressed in the next section. For now, it’s enough to simply point out that the duration of the crime is not what determines the punishment of the crime.
 Punishment is Based on the Source of the Law
In addition to this, it’s important to remember the punishment for any crime is not determined by the criminal, but by the authority who is responsible for upholding the standard. Justice is not determined by the law breaker, but by the law giver. Justice and punishment are established based on the nature of the source of the law, not the nature of the source of the offense. Since God is the source of justice and the law, His nature determines the punishment. Since God is eternal and conscious, all rewards and punishments must also be eternal and conscious.

And since God was willing to overwhelm the freewill of Saul the violent anti-Christian on the road to Damascus, it cannot be denied that, if God really wanted to, he could MAKE an obstinate skeptic become willing to believe and obey Christian doctrine.  Once again, God has no need to inflict justice, he can simply make people do whatever he wants. Ezra 1:1. 

The Crime is Worse Than You Think
Finally, it’s important to remember the nature of the crime eventually leading one into Hell. It is not the fact you kicked your dog in 1992. It’s not the fact you had evil thoughts about your teacher in 1983. The crime earning us a place in Hell is our rejection of the true and living eternal God.

But then it could be argued under Matthew 25:31-46 that when modern day faithless Gentiles do humanitarian works, they are earning their Christian salvation whether they know it or not.

This rejection is not finite. People who reject God have rejected Him completely.

No, we can reject another human being, but not completely, such as not wanting to talk to a spiteful brother, but not willing to see him get killed.

They have rejected Him to their death, to the very end. They have rejected Him as an ultimate and final decision. God then has the right and obligation to judge them with an ultimate punishment. To argue God’s punishment does not fit our crime is to underestimate our crime.
 There are several good reasons to expect an eternal punishment even though our earthly crimes may seem finite. Our approach to this objection may require us to give a robust and cumulative response:
 Objection:
Why Would A Loving God Punish Finite Sin With Infinite Torture?
 Response:
A Loving God simply allows us to suffer the anguish and torment resulting as a consequence of our bad choices. There is a difference between self-inflicted torment and active torture at the hands of another. The duration of the crime has nothing to do with the duration of the punishment (even in this life). The source of the law determines the degree of the punishment, and God is a perfect eternal, conscious being. Don’t be surprised to find we often underestimate the eternal consequence of our own sinful and ultimate choice to reject God.
 The source of the law determines the degree of the punishment, and God is a perfect eternal, conscious being.
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 Objection Four
Why Is the Penalty of Hell the Same, Even Though People Are So Different?
For some skeptics, the inequitable nature of Hell is seen in the way God punishes. Isn’t it unfair to send someone like Gandhi to Hell (simply because he was not a Christian) alongside someone like Hitler (who committed unspeakable atrocities)? A reasonable and just God would not be the source of such inequitable punishment, would He? In one sense, it is true: All sin has the same consequence when measured against God’s perfection.

But many Christians are open-theists, and insist the bible texts that express or imply imperfection in god were intended to be taken as literally as everything else in their respective contexts.  Your presupposition of God as "perfect" is dogshit.

Lying is just as significant as murder when it comes to assessing our imperfection relative to the perfection of God.

That's right.  If I tell a small child the boegy man will get them and they better go home, that lie makes me deserving of eternal torment.  If I don't think my wife is beautiful but I say she is anyway, I deserve to be tormented in the presence of holy angels and the lamb and whatever other fanciful apocalyptic bullshit 1st Enoch says will happen.

Even the slightest sin demonstrates our inadequacy and need for a Savior.

Jesus didn't seem to make too big of a deal of the sins of the Gentiles.  When specific individuals tried to interact with him, we learn how quickly he was willing to forgive them and move on to other people.  This constantly hanging around Jesus like a fanatic is not what Jesus required of future Gentile followers, apparently, though its probably unwise to trust the gospels to the point of drawing confident conclusions and inferences from them, shit who knows how much of that crap is merely the later view of the authors and how much is words Jesus actually mouthed.

But make no mistake about it; some sins are clearly more heinous than others in the eyes of God (John 19:11-12). As a result, the God of the Bible equitably prescribes punishments for wrongdoing on earth and in the next life:

Maybe that explains how easy he finds it to wave his magic wand and get rid of sin.

There Are Degrees of Punishment on Earth
When God gave the Law to Moses, He made one thing very clear: Some sins are more punishable than others. God assigned different penalties to different crimes, based on the offensive or heinous nature of the sin itself. The Mosaic Law is filled with measured responses to sin. God prescribed punishments appropriate to the crimes in question (Exodus 21:23-25). In fact, the Mosaic Law carefully assured that each offender would be punished “according to his guilt” and no more (Deuteronomy 25:2-3). The Mosaic Law is evidence of two things. First, while any sin may separate us from the perfection of God, some sins are unmistakably more offensive than others. Second, God prescribes different punishments for different crimes based on the severity of each crime.

Maybe that explains why he drowned all those kids in that flood. 

There Are Degrees of Punishment in Hell
In a similar way, God applies this principle to the next life, prescribing a variety of punishments in eternity corresponding to the crimes committed in this life (Revelation 20:12-13).

How the fuck would you know whether that was intended literally, and whether or not the book even speaks for God?  How are you going to utilize that book with a skeptic who thinks its pages are not even worthy of use as tissue paper?

This is most apparent in Jesus’ teaching on the “Wicked Servant” (Luke 12:42-48). In a straight forward interpretation of this parable, those who reject the teaching and calling of God will be harshly punished, but those who have less clarity on what can be known about God (“the one who did not know it”) will be punished with less severity. There are degrees of punishment in Hell; God is equitable and fair when it comes to the destiny of those who have rejected Him.

"fair" meaning "according to God", sort of like "fair according to Bill who runs the show and makes his own rules."  I'm less than convinced.

snip Objection Five
Why Would A Loving God Send Good People to Hell?
Some skeptics think it is unfair for God to penalize people who are otherwise good, just because they haven’t heard about Jesus. How many times have your non-believing friends said something like, “Hey, I’m a good person. If there is a Heaven, I know I’ll be there, because I’ve never done anything to deserve Hell”? I hear this all the time. It is almost as if they believe the Christian God simply sends people to Hell because they haven’t heard about Jesus or because they didn’t believe in Jesus. But this is simply not the case.
 There Are No Innocent People
God sends people to Hell because we deserve it. God assigns people to Hell because we are guilty:
 Revelation 20:12
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
 And what are the “works” of human beings? Remember what Paul quoted and described when outlining the true nature of humans:
 Romans 3:10-18
There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving, The poison of asps is under their lips; Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; Their feet are swift to shed blood, Destruction and misery are in their paths, And the path of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.
 Humans are not actually as “good” as we would like to think we are. We are continually “missing the mark”. We are continually sinning. And this sin is worthy of punishment:
 Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death…
 This is the Biblical description of humanity and the consequence of our supposed “goodness”. The Bible says none of us are good to begin with. But for those of us who might not want to accept the truth of the Bible, let’s look at it from a more philosophical perspective.

Very sad that your doctrine of sin doesn't come from Jesus, probably because you know that Jesus didn't teach that everybody was a "sinner".

snip irrelevant arguments.

Objection Six
Why Doesn’t God Reform People Rather Than Punish Them in Hell?
If God is all-loving, why doesn’t He simply “reform” people rather than allow them to continue in their sin and eventually punish them in Hell? Even human prison systems understand the value of reform; isn’t a God who punishes his children in Hell a sadistic and vengeful God? We expect a loving God would care enough about us to offer a chance to change rather than simply punish us vindictively for something we’ve done in the past. As it turns out, God (as he is described in the Bible) understands the difference between discipline and punishment, and He is incredibly patient with us, allowing us an entire lifetime to change our minds and reform our lives. This is easier to understand when we think carefully about the definitions of “discipline” and “punishment”:
 Discipline Looks Forward
All of us understand the occasional necessity of disciplining our children. When we discipline, we are motivated by love rather than vengeance. We hope to change the future behavior of our kids by nudging them in a new direction with a little discomfort. God also loves His children in this way and allows them the opportunity to reform under his discipline.

or maybe we are very naughty kids who will only destroy ourselves if we aren't parented more strictly, like the  case of the stubborn child who refuses to quit playing near the hot stove, sometimes parental love requires that you decrease the probability that the child will hurt themselves.

This takes place during our mortal lifetime; God disciplines those He loves in this life because He is concerned with eternity.

You don't have any evidence "god" does any such thing.  The rain falls on the just and the unjust.

Discipline, by its very definition, is “forward-looking” and must therefore occur in this world with an eye toward our eternal destiny:

No, heaven is also time-bound, there is no biblical justification for the modern view that God lives in an ever-present "now" where past and future subsumed into a single plane of existence.  That's just sophistry run amok.

Hebrews 12:9-11
Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

But you cannot demonstrate this anonymous NT book is inspired by God, so you are about as threatening to skepticism as a KJV Onlyist or Josh McDowell.

Punishment Looks Backward
There are times as a parent, however, when our loving efforts to discipline and reform are unsuccessful; our kids are sometimes rebellious to the point of exhaustion. In these times, our love requires us to deliver on our repeated warnings. Our loving sense of justice requires us to be firm, even when it hurts us to do so. Our other children are watching us as well, and our future acts of mercy will be meaningless if we fail to act justly on wrongdoing. In times like these, we have no alternative but to punish acts occurring in the past. Punishment need not be vindictive or vengeful. It is simply the sad (but deserved) consequence awaiting those who are unwilling to be reformed in this life.
 Hebrews 10:28-29
Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
 God is patient. He’s given each of us a lifetime to respond to His discipline and change our mind. It cannot be said God failed to give us the opportunity to repent. When we are rebellious to the point of exhaustion, however, God has no choice but to deliver on His warnings:
 Objection:
Why Doesn’t God Reform People Rather Than Punish Them in Hell?
 Response:
A loving God carefully disciplines and reluctantly punishes.

No, god says he will be just as "delighted" to inflict horrific atrocities on disobedient people as he is delighted to give prosperity to those who obey:

 63 "It shall come about that as the LORD delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the LORD will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. (Deut. 28:63 NAU)

God has given us many opportunities to acknowledge His existence and accept His offer of forgiveness. No one has an excuse.

Paul didn't have an excuse either, but he still views his ignorance and unbelief as the basis upon which God showed that blinding mercy to him:

 12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service,
 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief;
 14 and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.   (1 Tim. 1:12-14 NAU)

snip

The Grace Offered to Children
It is God’s desire for all to be saved, but clearly some will not choose to be saved.

God thinks overwhelming a person with proof of his existence is capable of causing them to respond in genuine faith and repentance.  Acts 9, 22, 26.

Children however, may not even have the chance to choose. What will God do with young children who have not had the opportunity to be taught about the forgiveness offered through Jesus? Well, the Bible never describes Hell as a place for children.

But it never specifies they are exempt from hell either.  Paul taught that children remain unclean unless the product of a biblically valid marriage:

 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. (1 Cor. 7:14 NAU)

You will not find a single description of Hell in which children are present.

You also wont find Jesus telling anybody that they had to believe he died for their sins and rose from the dead, before they can be saved. 

In fact, there may be good Biblical reason to infer God offers a special grace to young children. King David, for example, had a young baby with Uriah’s widow. This child died while still an infant, yet the Scripture affirms the notion the baby’s soul was present with the Lord after his death, in spite of the fact he was far too young to even hear about God at all:
 2 Samuel 12:22-23
And he said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows, the LORD may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’ But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”

What you omitted was how the child died.  God killed it:

13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
 14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die."
 15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
 16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.
 17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
 18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. (2 Sam. 12:13-18 NAU)

You don't think this is a proof that god is unloving because you arbitrarily broaden "loving" to encompass just whatever the bible says God does.

We have good reason to believe David’s soul also is present with the Lord today, and David tells us his son preceded him. God appears to offer special grace to children who are not yet able to hear about Him or understand the message of Salvation. This seems consistent with the idea that God shows special mercy to those who are not yet even capable of understanding right from wrong:
 Isaiah 7:14-15
“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. “He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good.”
 In this passage, Isaiah affirms there is a point at which young people “know enough to refuse evil and choose good”. Perhaps this is why God demonstrates his mercy with children. Young children simply cannot understand (and do not have the capacity to choose) good over evil. While all of us have a sin nature rebellious toward God, His special revelation has been given to those of us who have the ability to understand it. This also seems consistent with other Biblical passages that depict God’s Law as targeting those who were capable of understanding:
 Nehemiah 8:1-3
And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the LORD had given to Israel. Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it before the square which was in front of the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand; and all the people were attentive to the book of the law.
 All of us are born as sinners. No one is righteous. We are all sinners from birth. But it does appear God shows special mercy toward those who simply do not have the capacity to understand. This may include those who are mentally handicapped and it may also include those children who are too young to understand the truth of God’s offer of Salvation through Jesus Christ.

What would be a more reliable example of God's feelings toward children, the real world, full of pedophiles and kidnapping, or the highly idealistic bible whose unrealistic hopes have tormented Christians for centuries?

Is this the part where the Christian apologist tries to argue that it is wrong to be "realistic"?

As you can see, J. Warner Wallace's blind proof-texting cannot seriously be geared toward "convincing skeptics", he instead intends only Christians to benefit from such preaching to the choir.

Cold Case Christianity: Can Science Explain Everything? (Video)

This is my reply to a video by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity: Can Science Explain Everything? (Video) 

Posted: 16 Jan 2020 06:30 AM PST

J. Warner Wallace is interviewed by Impact 360 and describes the limits of science in explaining the universe in which we live. Can physics and chemistry explain everything we see in the universe? If it can’t, are we reasonable in looking to God as an explanation? 

In 800 a.d, the following dialogue took place, somewhere near Sweden:

-----Viking theist:  Can physics and chemistry explain thunder? 

Viking atheist:  No. A purely naturalistic explanation for thunder has not been found yet.

-----Viking theist:  If it can’t, are we reasonable in looking to Thor as an explanation? 

Viking atheist:  Yes.  As soon as you mention something science hasn't yet found a purely naturalistic explanation for, you should automatically conclude that no purely naturalistic explanation is even possible.  I'm now a disciple of Thor.  Thor's ways sure are mysterious!

Cold Case Christianity: Why is formal bible study so depressing?

This is my reply to a video from J. Warner Wallace entitled

A Common Seminary Complaint: 

How Academic Research Can Sometimes Steal Your Joy 

(Video)Posted: 14 Jan 2020 06:15 AM PST

Haden Clark from Help Me Believe interviews J. Warner Wallace for the Help Me Believe YouTube Channel. Haden comments that one common observation of seminary students is that rigorous theological study, especially when it aims at the creation of term papers and studies, can sometime make bible study feel like labor. How can we address this reality? 

Easy:  God doesn't honor his word, that's why for many Christians formal study of the bible is about as scintillating as a calculus mid-term.