my reply to Jonathon McLatchie on ECREE

I watched the ECREE debate between Jonathan McLatchie and Jonathan Pearce, see here.

I posted the following in the comment section:

The full text is

What do skeptics mean by "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"?  Just substitute the word "extraordinary" with its meaning as supplied from the dictionary (I use Merriam-Webster), and you end up with

 "Claims which go beyond what is usual, regular, or customary, or are exceptional to a very marked extent, require evidence which goes beyond what is usual, regular, or customary, or else is exceptional to a very marked extent".

 Yes, that means there is going to be inevitable  subjectivity as to what "beyond the usual" means, but that subjectivity is precisely why apologists cannot accuse skeptics of unreasonableness.  No, there is no magic "what quantity/quality of evidence should convince you" formula when it comes to claims that depart from our daily experience of reality, such as rising from the dead.   There is a very good reason that equally mature equally educated adult jurors often deadlock when interpreting real-world evidence of a crime created less than a year before the trial.   Only fools would expect such people to come to agreement on what quantity and quality of evidence for a miracle "should" be convincing (!?)

 As for myself, "beyond the usual" simply means evidence which has survived authentication challenges to some degree more severe than the authentication challenges we typically require to justify accepting commonplace claims by other people.  "beyond the usual" does not mean evidence that is different from documents, pictures, video or testimony.  It refers to how much more that type of evidence is authenticated, than is the evidence we typically accept from stranger who are making non-controversial commonplace claims.  A picture will normally suffice for us to accept the stranger's claim that they attended a birthday party.  But if the picture shows some kid in mid-air, and the claim is that this picture captured the child while levitating by the power of god...then suddenly, we demand this picture be authenticated much more than we did back when the picture was being used merely to document a commonplace claim like attendance at a birthday party.

 But at least this proves the deception of apologists who pretend that ECREE was intentionally designed to make sure supernatural claims would always falsely appear to be unjustified.

 If it were philosophically possible to come up with an objective criteria that would, when properly employed, enable all people to agree on whether some claimed event happened, I suspect the idea would have been discovered by now, sold to the Courts through the legal process, and we'd have stopped hearing about deadlocked juries years ago.  The claim that the skeptic is unreasonable to employ ECREE is actually a claim that ECREE is breaking some "rule" of historiography, hermeneutics or common sense.  But no apologist since Sagan first gave us ECREE has pointed out what the "rule" is, nor why those outside of Christianity "should" care about it.

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My challenge to Alisa Childers: justifying skepticism without falsifying Christianity

 Here is my reply to a video by Christian apologist Alisa Childers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETyzqrM3tB8

(wow, within about 20 minutes, Childers deleted this comment!)

Here is the full text in case that post is deleted (it was, about 20 minutes after I posted it).

Barry Jones

0 seconds ago

Even assuming Christianity is everything Childers thinks it is, one of the most powerful justifications for gospel-skepticism is the inability of any Christian to make a prima facie case for their claim that the bible "applies to us today". First, even assuming the OT and NT were complete as 66 books and viewed as canonical by Christians of the mid-first century, the fact that 2,000 years have passed, and the fact that today's Christian scholars disagree with each other over nearly every statement in the NT, means the question of why anybody thinks the bible "applies to us today" is legitimate and needs to be definitively answered by those who insist the bible "applies to us today". THEY are making the claim, they have no right to expect others to believe it until the prima facie case is made. Just like Protestants have the right to disregard the Apocrypha given their reasonable belief that Catholics have failed to make a prima facie case that it is canonical. Second, exactly what in the bible "applies to us today" is furiously debated within Christianity, particularly between dispensationalists, and between them and those who espouse covenant theology. If spiritually alive people disagree so much on that question, they are fools to "expect" spiritually dead unbelievers to figure out which Christian view is the "right" one. Third, the question of how and whether the bible "applies to us today" cannot be answered with solely biblical authority, which means the conservative or fundamentalist answer to that question should not be treated as if it was as equally correct as anything stated in the NT. The survival of the bible between the first century and today was due to reasons outside the biblical text itself. Mostly anonymous strangers from history made decisions about what was to be in a NT "canon", the records we have from Eusebius and others indicate there was much dispute at the early stages, and today's Christians, despite lacking the first clue as to who these strangers were, still insist that such strangers surely were "inspired by God" to adopt the canonical opinions that resulted in the current 27 book NT canon. It doesn't matter if that canonical theory is true, you cannot DEMONSTRATE it to be true, and the less you "demonstrate" such a thing, the more reasonable it is to say the formation of the canon had less to do with "god" and more to do with doctrinal and political controversies by people who had zero divine infallibility. You can't evne prove the slightly identifiable biblical authors were infallible in anything they wrote, how much worse for anonymous strangers before Eusebius who made decisions about what should be in the canon? Fourth, then there is the other problem of why Christians today view those strangers as "inspired by God" to "recognize" the 27 book NT canon. If those strangers were inspired by God to make such decisions, why don't Christians view those "discoveries" to be equally as infallible and binding as they view biblical text itself, which they also claim is "inspired by God"? Is there something in the bible that specifies that when God inspires later generations of Christians, that inspiration will be less intense than the inspiration God allegedly bestowed upon the original biblical authors? No. So the problem is that today's apologist wants us to believe God "guided" these strangers between the 1st and 3rd centuries, in their decisions concerning what books should be in a "canon", but god did NOT guide them with that level of infallibility that he allegedly did for the biblical authors. Skeptics observe that there was no evidence that God "guided" any such people in the first place, so for the skeptic, these trifles about God bestowing different levels of inspiration on different people involved in the bible's preservation unto today, is nothing but idle speculation. The evidence in favor of the Christian viewpoint is nowhere near as strong or convincing as to render skepticism about the matter "unreasonable". Fifth, when the skeptic refuses to listen to any Christian unless they are inspired by God to the point of inerrancy, today's apologists will immediately balk because they know perfectly well that there are no Christians today who possess that intense level of divine guidance. But we have to ask: the inability of today's Christian to provide the requested goods the way the allegedly divinely inspired apostles did, doesn't mean the request is unreasonable: If heresy and spiritual deception carry all of the horrific eternal consequences the bible seems to teach, the skeptic is very reasonable to insist that the risks of getting involved in this Christianity-business are so great, the only reasonable position is to limit one's education abour the bible to just those Christian teachers who possess infallibility...which is perfectly harmonious with the biblical model, in which the allegedly divinely inspired apostles were the proper "teachers". Us skeptics are thus perfectly reasonable to disregard any "teachings" from anybody except those who possess the same level of divine guidance that Childers thinks the original biblical authors had. Our daily decisions (to drive a car, to eat a meal without checking for poison, etc) do not carry the horrific and eternal consequences that the bible seems to attach to Christians who espoused false theology (Matthew 7:22-23, Galatians 1:6-9). Most Christians cannot avoid agreeing with me on the point. The Calvinists don't want you to learn from Arminian teachers, and Arminians don't want you to learn from Calvinists. Yes, apparently, we DO have to worry about the consequences of being misled by imperfect "teachers". It hardly needs to be pointed out that no Christian today can make any showing that they possess that level of divine guidance they speculate was possessed by the human biblical authors, therefore, the skeptic is just as reasonable to ignore the teachings of an imperfect Christian today, no less than the skeptic is reasonable to refrain from betting his life savings after getting advice from an imperfect prophet. WE are taking that risk, it is OUR soul that stands to lose and lose big...the Christian has no right to pretend that we "should" be willing to risk our eternal fate by trying to learn from Christian teachers who lack this critical attribute of infallibility. Thus the skeptical demand for infallible Christian teachers remains reasonable despite the Christians' obvious inability to supply them. Sixth and finally, it doesn't matter if Jesus really rose from the dead. That does NOT automatically "vindicate" Jesus. Deuteronomy 13:1-5 warns that the Hebrews were not to follow the teachings of a prophet even if he accomplished a genuinely supernatural miracle. The right test was whether the prophet spoke in harmony with the given Mosaic Law. So applying the same principle today, we do not ask whether Jesus rose from the dead, because even if he did, that could not reasonably foreclose the question of whether he taught heresy. We ask whether his teachings were in harmony with Mosaic law. They were not, especially if we read him, as Christians themselves do, through the lens of Paul's law-free gospel. The notion that Jesus' death "fulfilled" the law and changed anything is merely a claim of Paul and some of Jesus' early followers. By no means is that claim beyond dispute. And in light of Matthew 28:20, it would appear that regardless of how Matthew interpreted the theological consequences of Jesus' death in "fulfilling the law", the risen Christ nevertheless required that all future Gentile converts obey everything he previously taught the apostles. What did Jesus previously teach the apostles? Jesus' statement in Matthew 5:17-20 becomes reasonably legalistic when interpreted within its own context (Jesus requires actual personal righteousness on the part of each individual person, see vv. 21 ff, the context in no way shape or form suggests "imputed" or "imparted" righteousness). There is no generally accepted rule of hermeneutics requiring non-Christians to adopt only those interpretations of the bible that harmonize with each other. Not even most Christian scholars adopt biblical inerrancy. In a nutshell, that's a very powerful justification for skepticism toward Christianity. That's all it is. It does not prove Christianity false. As testified by numerous deadlocked juries, you can be reasonable to adopt a view that is contrary to the truth, if in fact what's "true" is extremely difficult to ascertain.

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My reply to R. L. Solberg on Jesus' resurrection

 I posted the following in reply to R. L. Solberg's comments about his debate with Rabbi Tovia Singer:  See here:

I don't understand why you find Jesus' resurrection significant.  I can tell from modern Christianity and from the NT that if I become interested in Jesus, there is a greater than 51% chance that I will get suckered into a "cult".  Doesn't it make more sense for skeptics to limit their sins to just the sin of unbelief, and to avoid adding "heresy" to their account?

Sure, you can say God will surely reveal doctrinal truth to his sincere followers, but that logically requires a presupposition that all Christians who end up interpreting the bible differently than you do, were therefore not sincere.

If you refuse to say most of today's Christians are insincere, then how DO you explain the fact that millions of equally sincere seekers of Christ disagree on how to interpret a bible verse?

In other words, how do YOU explain the fact that another Christian who is equally as sincere and saved as you, disagrees with your interpretation of a bible verse?

You won't like the hypothesis that God has different strokes for different folks, but aside from that, I'm not seeing what's so unreasonable with that hypothesis.  If you reject it, it would seem you are forced to either admit God may want certain sincere Christ-seekers to interpret the bible incorrectly....or you are forced to insist that those Christ seekers who adopt what you consider to be "heresy" were never sincere toward God in the first place.

The last hypothesis makes sense enough, but it's also horrifically bigoted and makes your own interpretations of the bible a judge on whether some other Christ-seeker is sincere or insincere.

Can skeptics be reasonable to conclude that after 2,000 years, the NT's message is locked in fatal ambiguity, a thing that would justify today's skeptic to characterize the whole business as unprofitably convoluted and not worth one's time in taking seriously?

my reply to BellatorChristi.com on bible "hell"

This is my reply to an article by Dr. Daniel Merritt, Ph.D., Th.D,  at BellatorChristi entitled

Understanding Why There is a Hell

May 9, 2022

When is the last time you heard a sermon on hell? 

It's been about 25 years. 

Hell is a doctrine that in the majority of Christendom is dismissed today as being an archaic belief that is ripped right out of the pages of mythology.

If it is the "majority of Christendom" that dismisses "hell", then you have a choice: The majority of Christians who dismiss hell are spiritually alive or dead.  If they are spiritually alive, then you are a fool to expect spiritually dead skeptics to have a more accurate understanding of a biblical doctrine than a spiritually alive Christian has.  In that case, spiritual death gives the skeptic all the reasonableness they need to reject the doctrine.  If you don't expect a blind person to see what is in front of them, why would you expect a spiritually dead person to discern biblical "truth"?

If most Christians who reject hell are spiritually dead, then they would obviously disagree with you. If two Christians within the Trinitarian group question each other's salvation, you are a fool to expect a spiritually dead skeptic to figure out who is right and to thus to avoid the Christian who is "wrong" about hell.

But either way, your comment is problematically generalized.  The vast majority of Christians do not dismiss "hell", they dismiss the eternal conscious torment-interpretation of biblical "hell".

So you have set up a false dilemma:  the issue is not whether Christians should believe a biblical doctrine of hell, but whether they can be reasonable to interpret biblical hell as annihilation.  As you are well aware, annihilationism is convincing more and more Christians within the Trinitarian group, it isn't just the 7th day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses.  Clark Pinnock was a signatory to the ICBI statement on bible inerrancy (see here), yet he held:

How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been? Surely a God who would do such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God, at least by any ordinary moral standards, and by the Gospel itself"
“The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent”, Criswell Theological Review, Spring, 1990: p. 246-247

Merritt continues: 

To speak of hell today is considered to be an unnecessary figment of over religious minds that seek to scare someone into submitting to an ogre-like God who takes delight in throwing someone who “steps out of line” into an eternal lake of fire.

Deuteronomy 28:63 sums up a list of horrors that only a lunatic would inflict on children, then sums up the list saying that just as god would "delight" to give abundance to those who obey, he will also "delight" the same way to inflict those horrors on children.

 54 "The man who is refined and very delicate among you shall be hostile toward his brother and toward the wife he cherishes and toward the rest of his children who remain,
 55 so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, since he has nothing else left, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you in all your towns.
 56 "The refined and delicate woman among you, who would not enture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and refinement, shall be hostile toward the husband she cherishes and toward her son and daughter,
 57 and toward her afterbirth which issues from between her legs and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you in your towns. (Deut. 28:54-57 NAU)

 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)

Merritt continues: 

After all, it is said, a loving God would never banish anyone to suffer the fate of eternal flames.

Sort of like "a loving father would never rape his adult daughter".

Interestingly, Jesus spoke more on hell than He did heaven.

That is a lie.

http://www.rightreason.org/2010/did-jesus-preach-hell-more-than-heaven/

That being true, teaching about hell must not be dismissed as being antiquated, but is of the utmost importance to understand why there is a hell…and even more so how to avoid such a place.

Naw, Jesus was just another dime-store fanatic.  I've written thousands of pages refuting the resurrection arguments of Habermas, Licona and other apologists.

While discussing hell is a topic one would like to avoid and dismiss, if it is a real place to neglect attention to its existence is at one’s own peril.

Sure, if you can "show" that Jesus' warnings about hell apply to modern-day people.  Good luck attempting mission impossible. 

The bottom line is this, when one understands the holiness of God one understands why there is a hell.

It is beyond dispute that ancient semitic people exaggerated matters in their daily conversations and especially their religious writings.  You would probably resort to that excuse to get rid of the horrors in Deuteronomy 28, supra, thus motivating skeptics to wonder whether Jesus' warnings about hell were also just another case of Semitic exaggeration.

Indeed, you probably don't have the first clue as to how to tell when ancient Semitic theology is employing exaggeration and when it isn't.

And whatever teaching-resource you recommend, how can I stay safe from the threat of hell while I go about procuring and studying that hermeneutical aid? 

What would be the point of such study if I'm supposed to believe/obey first, and only study second?  Doesn't rationality require that I first learn about the issues and form an hypothesis before I just dive in?   But then again, does the urgency of needing to avoid hell make it 'dangerous' for me to delay the day of my salvation?

I mean, if I died in a car accident on the way to the library to check out "1001 Ways to distinguish Semitic reality from Semitic exaggeration", would I be saved because I was searching?  Would I go to hell because I wasn't a Christian at the time I died?  Or would you pull the same desperate excuse Lydia McGrew did, and speculate that there a second chance in the afterlife for those who die while in the effort to check out Christian claims?

And how long does God want me to study Calvinism, before he will expect me to draw conclusions about whether my choices in life contribute anything to my life, or if they are rendered nothing more than reactions to the allegedly infallible divine will?  If you don't know how long God wants me to study Calvinism, don't you forfeit the right to balk if I answer that question for myself in a way you don't like?

And when one understands the holiness of God and sees their own sinfulness in the light of His pure and perfect holiness, one understands that hell is what we all actually deserve.

Your god is not that holy.  The bible attests that he is often corrected by smarter humans.  See Exodus 32:9-14.  The efforts of classical theists to distinguish this from the analogous case of a friend changing their mind after receiving better advice from another human being, are laughable and are guided more by concerns about inerrancy and less by concerns to interpret the story correctly.  But bible inerrancy is a false doctrine, so I can be reasonable to remain open to the possibility that the bible makes contradictory statements about god. 

When one grasps the majestic, perfect holiness of God, like Isaiah (Is. 6), one will realize they are sinfully-unworthy to EVER encounter the presence of One so holy-other.

Didn't the sinful Balaam encounter God in Numbers 22:33, you know, that bible verse that equates God with Satan?

Come, let us reason together.

Then God is a fucking idiot because he in Romans 3:9-18 condemns man's ability to reason correctly. 

Understanding Why There is a Hell and God’s Nature as Holy-Love

Are you even AWARE that many Trinitarian Evangelical Christian scholars have abandoned the eternal conscious torment version of hell for annihilationism?  And yet you talk as if you can wave aside all that Trinitarian scholarship because of god's holiness...as if you think many such scholars, despite having legitimate claims to being both authentically born again and walking in the light of Christ for decades, somehow "missed" that the holiness of god somehow demands that he torture unrepentant sinners forever.  LOL.

The Bible is clear that God is holy and that God is love

The Apocrypha is also clear that the Maccabees were zealous Jews.  Did you have a point? 

…He is holy-love.

He is also stupid, by his own admission.  See Genesis 6:6.  The immediate context indicates the statement about God's dissatisfaction with his prior decision to create man is no less literal than the prior story of the sons of God taking the daughters of men.  It is how the originally intended audience would have interpreted the account, which matters most in interpretation, and such audience, being pre-scientific and mostly illiterate, would not have had the theological sophistication to pretend that they would have trifled that such language is "anthropomorphism".

While Christendom puts great emphasis on God’s love, His love cannot be properly appreciated if one doesn’t understand His holiness.

That is stupid:  you can see the love of a man in assisting a victim of a traffic accident when he calls 911, even if you don't know anything more about him.  Assuming he called 911 out of a general love for humanity is going to be reasonable until specific evidence is given indicating he called 911 for other more selfish reasons. 

Holiness denotes the absolute majesty and splendor of God, that He is distinctly transcendent from any other being or thing He has created. He is holy-other. Holiness describes the essence of God. He is holy; divine holiness of character being who He is in all of His perfect ethical and moral authenticity and truthfulness. Holiness is His self-affirming purity; He cannot be other than holy.

Was Jesus still holy at the time he "became sin" (2nd Cor. 5:21)?

Or did I forget that Jesus has two natures and that it was only his human nature that became sin?

Gee, that's funny, the bible doesn't  put forth much effort to say Jesus had two natures, and the gospels most certainly don't get that specific.  Aren't you as a Christian supposed to be concerned that this sharp distinction between Jesus' human and divine natures was condemned at The Council of Chalcedon?

...One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He was parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ; even as from the beginning the prophets have taught concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers hath handed down to us.

If Jesus is a single person, and that person has two natures, then its going to be reasonable to conclude that when "Jesus" became sin (2nd Cor. 5:21), ALL of him became sin, not merely his "human nature". I don't personally care if the apostle Paul would trifle otherwise, just like I wouldn't care if Paul trifled that demon serpents bite the spirits of unbelievers in some after-life. Paul doesn't have the minimal credentials I require in order to justify me in trusting his judgment about horrifically debatable things that not even Trinitarian Christians can agree on.

Merritt continues:

Holiness is God’s perfect righteousness. Habakkuk says, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Hab. 1:13). Holiness is God’s infinite value and worth as the One who is absolutely unique and morally pure and perfect. God’s holiness pervades His entire being and shapes all His attributes and His actions with humanity. That God is holy means that His very being is completely devoid of even a trace of sin, unrighteousness, or moral deviation.

Semitic exaggeration. 

Understanding Why There is a Hell and the Creation Story
In the Creation Story, it was God’s desire that holiness be the atmosphere which would pervade the Garden of Eden, and man through fellowship with his Creator was to cooperatively conform to the order of His holiness. All of creation was to reflect the nature of a holy God, reflect the holiness of the Creator. God created the world where His holiness was woven into the very fabric of creation. When man willfully sinned, he defied God’s holiness.

But man in sinning conformed perfectly to the hidden will of God, or so the consistent 5 Point Calvinists say.  How long do you recommend an unbeliever research the biblical claims of Calvinists about God's sovereignty?  If you don't have biblical justification for that length of recommended time, isn't your recommendation something less than absolute?  Doesn't that mean that it will be reasonable for the unbeliever to disagree and suggest another length of time to study such a subject? 

The doctrine of Original Sin means that each of us have inherited a sinful nature from disobedient Adam.

A doctrine denied by the Orthodox church and several other denominations such as Church of Christ.  How long do you recommend an unbeliever study their arguments aginst original sin before God will expect them to start drawing conclusions about that doctrine?  

And how can the unbeliever stay safe from the threat of hell while they engage in that research?

Our inherited sinful nature means we are more than children who have gone astray, but we possess a nature that is consciously and actively rebellious against God’s holiness and our rebellion is directed against the holy God who created us and who is the true Source of all spiritual and ethical morality and reality. We are sinners by nature and by choice.

Correction, we only choose to sin because our nature is sinful.  If we didn't have a sin nature, we wouldn't sin any more than Jesus sinned. 

Sin is that which seeks to undermine God’s rightful place in our lives and in mutiny disregards the very holiness of God. Sin in its very nature, is an assault on God’s holiness. When His holiness is violated, nature and man convulse with consequences which repulses holiness and invites holy justice.

But if God is everything you think he is, he knew sin was inevitable, and therefore, God no more "expected" Adam and Eve to consistently obey him than you would expect a cow to jump over the moon.  With good reason the bible warns you against peering into theology too much:  you might discover its fallacies.  Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Understanding Why There is a Hell and the Guilt of Sin
For our holy God there can be no compromise with sin.

Then what word would you use to characterize God's "allowing" polygamy in the OT?  Isn't "compromise" the best word?  If the Adam and Eve marriage model is valid, polygamy would have been sin in the OT. 

Sin must be dealt with.

No, Jesus forgave sins plenty including forgiving those who manifested neither repentance nor desire for forgiveness.  Luke 23:34.  God no more needs to "punish" sin than you need to "rob a bank".

You will, of course, trifle that Jesus' granting forgiveness during his earthly ministry was with a view toward his need to die for those sins.  That is also bullshit, even in the OT, God can get rid of sin with nothing more than a wave of his magic wand:

 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. (2 Sam. 12:13 NAU)

See how easy it is for God to lift the death penalty against adultery and murder?

But then your "holy" God decides to torture David's infant son for 7 days for sins the baby obviously wasn't guilty of:

 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. 12:14-18 NAU)

Merritt continues:

Judgement is holiness’ reaction to sin.

Unfortunately for you, forgiveness is also Holiness' reaction to sin.  Luke 23:34.  And it's spelled "judgment", not "judgement". 

Hell is where all sin that is not adequately dealt with will be banished; banished to a place of eternal alienation from God because holiness’ reaction to sin is just judgment.

Why can't god simply forgive unrepentant unbelievers the way Jesus did in Luke 23:34?

Why can't God cause a fetus to be filled with the Holy Spirit, at a time in its life when it is incapable of choosing between good and evil (Luke 1:15)?

If God knows of a non-hell non-judgment way to reduce the amount of sin in the world, and he doesn't employ that solution, doesn't that make it reasonable, even if not infallible, to conclude that God likes to take problems and falsely insist they are bigger than they really are?  In other words, your god is a drama-queen?

Since I am guilty before a holy God, since my sinful and rebellious nature has willfully rebelled against His pure and perfect holiness, unless my sin is dealt with, then holiness will justly deal with sin in judgement.

God could have spared you all that sin-problem by simply filling you with the Holy Spirit before you were born, Luke 1:15.  So if God chose to employ a solution that didn't preempt you from sinning, then God obviously wanted you to sin.  God knew of a way to achieve his will with you without allowing sin, but he chose to forego that solution and employ a solution that involved you becoming a sinner.  The notion that God "doesn't want" you to sin, is utterly stupid, and only dictated by the requirements of your theology, not common sense.  And Exodus 32:9-14 indicates God sometimes lacks common sense.  And Genesis 6:6 indicates God sometimes regrets not mankind's becoming sinful, but regrets his own decision to create mankind in the first place. 

When one sees their sin in the light of God’s perfect and pure holiness, they realize that they are undeserving to ever come into the presence of His majestic holiness and justly deserve judgment.

Then how do you explain other equally authentically born again Trinitarians, whose salvation status you would charitably refuse to question, who say this article of yours teaches a heretical view of hell and god's justice?

Should skeptics be warned that even if they become authentically born again, there is STILL a very good chance they will end up espousing "heresy"?  Then maybe my standards are higher than god's, but I don't see the point of going through the motions to convince myself I am "born again", if this still leaves the doors wide open to the possibility that I'll get a nasty surprise on judgment day (Matthew 7:22-23, Hebrews 6:4-8). 

A holy God owes sin nothing but well-deserved judgment.

According to Luke 23:34, a holy god also believes himself obligated to forgive the type of sinners that not only engage in sin against him, but who manifest not the slightest bit of intent to repent or seek forgiveness. 

God would deny His own holy nature if His holiness did not react to sin in judgement.

Then God must have been denying his own holy nature in 2nd Samuel 12:13, supra, where he exempts David from the death penalty for both murder and adultery.  Apparently, god is capable of relaxing his standards when he really wants to.  He is also capable of punishing David's baby for sins the baby did not commit (v. 15-18), which opens the door wide to the possibility that god sees nothing wrong in torturing babies in hell.  If he doesn't see anything wrong in torturing babies in this current life, what makes you think god would regard it as "unjust" to do the same to a baby in the afterworld? 

Understanding Why There is a Hell and the Offense of Sin
Now remember, God is holy-love. Though God’s love desires to extend forgiveness, the offensiveness of sin and sin’s assault on holiness must first be satisfied and dealt with.

No, see Luke 23:34 

While holiness cannot overlook sin, it must judge it,

False, God got rid of David's sins by merely waving his magic wand.  2nd Samuel 12:13. 

His love provided the means were by His holiness was satisfied and our sins could be forgiven!!

But his love apparently knew of a way to "forgive" people of sin before Jesus was crucified.  Jesus was forgiving unrepentant sinners in Luke 23:34, and the OT is clear that under the animal sacrifice system, the blood of bulls and goats made a person "clean of their sins before the Lord". Leviticus 16:30.

God also apparently sees nothing wrong in causing sinners to be filled with the Holy Spirit before they are born.  Luke 1:15.  One wonders how much sin would be avoided, and how much excuse for divine wrath God would be deprived of, had he done for all humans what he did for John the Baptist in Luke 1:15.

Our holy God in love took upon Himself our flesh, and becoming the representative man, becoming our substitute, He lived that perfect holy life which holiness demands but to which we cannot comply, therefore deserving judgement.

Wrong again, the OT is clear that obeying all of God's commands is NOT too difficult:

10 if you obey the LORD your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and soul.
 11 "For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.
 12 "It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?'
 13 "Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?'
 14 "But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it. (Deut. 30:10-14 NAU)

Merritt continues: 

Christ, as your and my representative perfectly complied with God’s holy demands which we could never do, thus satisfying the demands of holiness.

Jesus could not possibly have "perfectly" complied, because Luke 2:52 says Jesus grew in "favor with God".  IF that is true, then his conformity to god's will in his earlier years cannot have been as perfect as his conformity to God's will in his later years.  Yes, Luke 2:52 is an affront to Jesus' alleged divine "nature", but we are reasonable to assume Luke did not possess the sophistication of Nicaea and later councils.  When he said "Jesus" grew in favor with God, we are reasonable to assume he meant everything that made up Jesus, he did not mean "only his human nature".  Since the question is whether skeptics can be reasonable to view things that way, your predictable recital to God's mysterious ways does not function to impose the least bit of intellectual obligation on the skeptic, nor does not function as "rebuttal", it merely helps you save face. 

Then on the cross, the perfect Son of God took the sin of humanity upon Himself and confessed holiness’ just judgment on sin, which judgement you and I deserved, thus demonstrating love that goes beyond our comprehension.

If "love" goes beyond our comprehension, then so does the manner in which god withholds love, in which case there is a probability that the reason we shy away from saying God sends some babies to hell arises from our inability to understand god's ways.  Torturing babies in hell certainly defies common sense, but in Christian apologetics, "common sense" is routinely tossed out the window when expediency dictates.

Christ lived a life I could not live, then paid a debt I could never pay (Romans 5:8; 2 Cor. 5:21). Now that is LOVE….

And the child molester gave the child food and water during the two months that he held her in his basement after kidnapping her.  Now that is LOVE...but obviously humans are quite capable of manifesting "love" while also manifesting desire to harm.  So it doesn't matter that God shows "love", real-world experience teaches us that the person who does a loving thing, can just as easily harbor desire to harm the entire time. 

and when you and I understand the holiness of God and the just judgment upon sin for violating God’s holiness, then one bows in awe and wonder at such love demonstrated in the Christ event that makes it possible for sinful man to escape our sins deserved fate.

No, God can simply cause people to be filled with the Holy Spirit before they are born (Luke 1:15) and can get rid of our sins by simply waving his magic wand the same way he exempted David from the death penalties for adultery and murder (2nd Samuel 12:13).  God's preferred method is apparently to avoid the solution that suppresses sin as much as possible. 

When one grasps what Christ willingly did for us in His life and death, then the word “grace” takes on a depth of meaning that results in praise forever flowing from our lips.
Conclusion
Yes, there is a hell.

This was a horrifically weak argument.  You avoided all biblical referenes to hell and simply tried to prove something with human sophistry, when Paul,  your faith hero, was telling you for 2,000 years that persuasive words are not the true Christian's priority (1st Cor. 2:4-5).

Hell is a reserved place for divine justice in the face of willful defiance to divine holiness.

But most non-Christians are not "willfully" defying God anymore than authentically born again Trinitarians who are Preterist are "willfully" defying Acts 1:11.  So was it your intention to teach that the vast majority of non-Christians don't go to hell in the afterworld? 

Holiness’ judgement is justified reactional justice on sin’s violation of God’s pure and perfect holy nature.

But human wisdom can successfully persuade god that his intent to judge humans is stupid and should be avoided.   Exodus 32:9-14. 

Yet His divine love, as seen in the Christ of the cross, is offered and available to all who see their sinfulness in the light of his divine holiness and embrace the indescribable provision that is found in Jesus Christ.

No thank you.  The true gospel was preached by Jesus before he died, and for obvious reasons did not require anybody to believe he died for their sins.  You will say the rules changed, or something was "added" somehow when Jesus died on the cross, so, how long does God want unbelievers to study the differences of bible interpretation between dispensationsalists themselves, and between dispensationalists and covenant theologians, before he will expect the unbeliever to start drawing conclusions about who is right and wrong?  If you don't know, you forfeit the right to balk if I answer that question for myself in a way you don't like.

Therefore, if I have studied the matter for several years, I cannot be faulted if my conclusions are "wrong".

What I find stupid about the doctrine of hell and God is that we are supposed to believe that there is terrible danger to unbelievers, and yet it is not god, but a mass of conflicting Christian theologians and apologists, who are the only ones doing the talking.  If the creator of hell doesn't wish to make himself sufficiently clear for even authentically born again Trinitarians, he is a fucking fool to "expect" spiritually dead skeptics to "correctly" interpret biblical "hell".

my challenge to Timothy and Lydia McGrew

 I posted the following in the comment section to a YouTube video wherein Dr. McClatchie interviews Dr. Lydia McGrew and Dr. Timothy McGrew, here.

Barry Jones

if Lydia McGrew denies that her ceaseless loquaciousness constitutes the sin of word-wrangling which Paul prohibited in 2nd Timothy 2:14, will Lydia provide a few examples of fictional dialogue which she thinks DO constitute the sin of word-wrangling?  The Greek term merely means to fight over words, and since Paul left this unqualified in the context, I'm not seeing an academic basis to object to the interpretation which says it was precisely what we routinely see in modern scholarly Christian apologetics, that Paul was calling "word-wrangling.  That might be a fatal blow to Christianity, but so what?  There are arguments that are fatal to Mormonism, does that justify the Mormon to insist those arguments are false?

How does Lydia McGrew reconcile her undeniably mouthy nature, with those Proverbs that leave no logically possible room for mouthy people to be free of foolishness?

Proverbs10:19When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.

Proverbs 18:2 A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

Will Lydia argue that in the social context of the Proverbs author, speaking thousands of words literally every day was normal, therefore, because Lydia doesn't speak thousands of words everyday, she's under the limit?

What would you do if you found out that reasonableness can sometimes exist even where accurate belief doesn't (e.g., you think other Christians are wrong in their eschatology, but you refuse to call them unreasonable)?  Would you become open to the possibility that resurrection skeptics might be reasonable even if their basis for skepticism is inaccurate belief?

How long does god want me to study the differences between Christian and non-Christian scholars on the resurrection of Jesus (e.g., McGrew v. Licona;  Ehrman v. W.L. Craig) before God will demand that I start drawing ultimate conclusions?  If you don't know, don't you forfeit the right to balk if I answer those questions for myself in a way you don't like?  

What rule of historiography requires those investigating ancient truth claims to believe the declarations first and not assume fraud or error until the declaration can be proven to contradict other known realities.  Don't say "Aristotle's Dictum", Josh McDowell was lying about that, it never existed, and it is never even mentioned by non-Christian historians.  And since when do Christian apologists recommend unbelievers follow the advice of pagan idolater?  But if there is no such rule of historiography, then it must be reasonable to conclude that skeptics are not violating any rule of historiography if they choose to completely disregard any and all forms of bible study.

Suppose God wanted me to study 1st Corinthians 15 starting tomorrow at noon my time zone.  What can I reasonably expect him to do to alert me to this aspect of his will?  A stranger bringing up that chapter in conversation?  A bible hits my windshield and it is opened to 1st Cor. 15?  What exactly, and how do you know God would act that way to get my attention?  How do you know when my failure to notice God's attempts to get my attention become unreasonableness on my part?  Will god alert me to this part of his will with the same obvious undeniability that the neighbor does when he says "hello"?

If it be true that not even spiritually alive people can correctly figure out biblical matters, wouldn't you have to be a scorching stupid fool to pretend that you expect spiritually dead atheists to do better at discerning biblical truth?  Or did I forget that Lydia McGrew violates 1st Cor. 2:15 by objecting like an atheist and saying "Being spiritually alive has zilch to do with it."   http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2017/10/on_some_examples_in_plutarch.html

Posted by Lydia | November 14, 2017 5:15 PM

What is unreasonable about my demand that if God wants my attention, he stop being silent and start doing miracles?  I've already contacted the apologists like Craig Keener who hawk modern day miracles the most, with an offer to give me the one modern miracle they think is most impervious to falsification, and I'm getting no answers.  https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2017/12/my-questions-to-dr-craig-keener.html

Lydia will say I would deny God even if he did a miracle, but that's not true.  I've disagreed with my bosses in the last 20 years, and personally hated some of them, but I still performed whatever lawful task they asked of me because I respected the fact that they were rightfully in a position of power over me.  So it wouldn't matter if I 'hated god', that does not justify you to dogmatically conclude that surely God would be wasting his time doing a miracle for me.  You actually don't know that, and there's plenty of evidence in your bible to the contrary.  Paul was more antagonistic toward Christianity than most modern atheist bible skeptic trolls, but Lydia must confess that God's miracle convinced Paul to change his mind.  Have fun pretending that you "know" that God views the conversion of Paul as a "special exception" which "doesn't normally apply".  You don't know that.  It could just as easily be that we never see  confirmation of conversions similar to Paul's because Paul's conversion story is fiction in the first place.

If it is reasonable to require that the more you entrust yourself to somebody else's care, the more strict the tests of authentication their claims to trustworthiness must pass, then what is unreasonable with the skeptical argument that says because my decision to accept Christ will affect where I spend eternity, the proofs for the trustworthiness of the bible must pass the strictest possible tests of authenticity?   My guess is you'd confess to losing that particular debate, since too many Christian  scholars deny the apostolic authorship of the gospels to pretend that they have any reasonable chance of passing the "strictest possible" authentication tests.  When I demand that Matthew appear to me and confess to his authorship of Matthew, is that stupid because I'm asking for a miracle of the sort the bible says happened (Matthew 17:3, Acts 16:9), or is it stupid because Lydia McGrew agrees with skeptics that we all know miracles are too unlikely to justify asking god to do them? 

Would a skeptic be stupid to make sure his book was historically reliable, while doing nothing about the fact that thousands of people disagree on how to correctly interpret it?  Then what shall we say of a god who makes sure his bible is demonstrably historically reliable, but does nothing to provide them a demonstrably correct interpretive key?  All Christian scholars admit the relevance of grammar, immediate context, larger context, social context and genre, yet apparently, when you employee these just as much as the next Christian scholar, you cannot avoid arriving at interpretations they disagree with.  What's wrong with the skeptical theory that God wants people to believe the bible is historically reliable, but doesn't want Christians to obey 1st Cor. 1:10?  It doesn't matter if it contradicts the bible, it sure does look like it is supported by obvious reality...unless you  insist that the only reason other Christians disagree with your interpretations of the bible is because they are not sincere in asking God to guide them.

If "god's ways are mysterious" doesn't sound convincing to you when a Calvinist or a Sabellian uses it to get away from a problem created by their theology, why should I find that excuse compelling when YOU use it to get away from a problem created by YOUR theology?  Is it written in the stars that sacramentalism is the right form of Christianity?

Is it reasonable to infer from the fact that Lydia McGrew and Mike Licona disagree on how to argue the resurrection, that one of these people is not as receptive to the Holy Spirit as the bible says they should be?  Or does Lydia deny that the Holy Spirit enlightens those who walk in the light of Christ?  If God has his reasons for refusing to enlighten some of his sincere followers, then how could you ever pretend that a skeptic's false understanding of the bible is unreasonable?  

Can it be reasonable for a skeptic to agree with the Christian scholarly majority that Mark was the earliest of the canonical gospels to be published?  Can it be reasonable for the skeptic to agree with the Christian scholarly majority that authentic Markan text ends at 16:8.  If so, then how could it possibly be unreasonable for the skeptic to draw the inference that the earliest gospel never said anybody actually saw the risen Christ?  How could the skeptic be unreasonable to draw the further inference that the stories of resurrection eyewitnesses in the later 3 gospels are the result of fictional embellishment with the passing of time?

 

I guess we can see how poorly James Patrick Holding will do in trial

 James Patrick Holding posted this point by point answer to another critic, and I show how fucking absurd Holding's logic is

tektontv1 day ago

All of these whines seem to designed to avoid engaging real arguments rather than answering them. It also hoists itself on its own petard repeatedly.

Empty rhetoric that any fool could use, but I'm sure your followers do what you do, and mistake rhetoric for actual substance. 

>>>"1. The vast majority of Jesus nation didn't accept him, despite the miracles he may have done.

So? the vast majority of the Egyptians, Moabites, Canaanites, etc never accepted Judaism in spite of the miracles of Moses, Joshua, Elijah, etc.

Probably because the Egyptians, Moabites and Canaanites never had any reason to think Moses, Joshua or Elijah could do real miracles. 

>>>So accepting the claims of small cult (of Jesus) is less rational than accepting the decisions of vast majority of the people back then.

You mean like Judaism, the small cult that came out of Egypt to found what, politically speaking, was a puny and insignificant nation?? Do tell.

That wasn't a rebuttal.   

>>>2. The Old Testament doesn’t prove Christianity, because we do see that Jews explain the same verses completely different. When you have more than one way to interpret something, it can't be a proof.

I don't know what he means when he refers to the OT "proving" Christianity. I would never say it does.

Then you never read 2nd Timothy 3:16.  It is talking about the OT when it says the scripture is profitable to the Christian for "doctrine", and apostle Paul curiously grounds doctrine always in the OT, never on the words of Jesus.  Paul's allegedly grounding completely obvious common sense on something Jesus said (1st Timothy 5:18) is less about grounding something and more about telling the world just how little Paul thought of the pre-resurrection Christ.  

>>>3. Christianity is no valid more than Islam or other religions, because that if God changed the religion so drastically (Old Testament commandments does not required anymore, and so on) - why stay there? Let's accept that God came again to Muhammad, or Joseph Smith.

Non sequitur.

No, your non-sequitur is a non-sequitur:  he wasn't arguing that God surely did change religions.  he was only arguing that it would be reasonable for a person to believe that was the case.  The only time "non-sequitur" can validly apply is when the critiqued argument was saying a certain conclusion "necessarily" followed.  You'd be surprised at how often apologists say "non-sequitur" to a skeptical argument, when in fact the argument is not about what is necessarily true, but what is reasonable to believe. 

>>>4. The trinity sounds absurd when you believe in monotheistic God, in comparison to the way Judaism see their God.

Too bad this dumbass never heard of Trinitarian precursors in Judaism like hypostatic Wisdom.

Except that Judaism's hypostatic Wisdom is equally absurd as Trinitarianism, unless you kick the Christians out of the room and stop pushing the personification of wisdom so literally.  But the jury will find it interesting that with the remark "dumbass", the world's smartest Christian apologist cannot stop insulting people.  Download the 534-page Complaint here, then start at page 486.  There's about 35 pages of proofs that Holding lied when he testified under oath that he has "never deliberately intended to insult anyone by his communications", a statement that both he and his lawyer choose to leave unqualified. 

>>>>5. Judaism apologists disprove Christianity proofs easily. As Judaism is non-missionary religion, they have no motive to religion debate everywhere. That’s why most of the "proofs" over internet are one sided and you miss the Jews real point of views in the matter.

I smelled the elephant he hurled but I don't see it.

Then read 2000 years of church history, that's how long the Jews have failed to be impressed by Christian arguments, so apparently, the OT statements that NT authors use to prove something about Christianity, are not quite as rock-solid as the tearful inerrantist on Sunday morning would like to think. 

>>>Most people are not resisting to Christianity or any other religion because they are evil or stupid or stubborn. There are many rabbis, priests, Muftis and others that knows the truth and can win any debate.

Basically this guy has nothing but slogans to offer.

That would hardly matter.  I could kick your fucking head off in a debate about bible inerrancy and Jesus' resurrection, and the most you could do about it is post a defamatory cartoon video to YouTube.  Then YOU accuse other adults of having the mentality of a two-year old (!?) 

By the way, Mr. Holding, if you are so fucking serious that God approves of you calling your enemies "dumbasses", do you plan on calling ME a dumbass when you take the witness stand in front of the jury?  It doesn't matter if the earthly judge prohibits this, the true Christian obeys the higher spiritual moral where it conflicts with an earthly secular rule.  Acts 5:29, "we must obey God rather than men", so you can forget about pretending that Romans 13 requires that you obey secular authorities.  The earthly judge would be violating your idea of higher spiritual ethics in telling you to address me in a courteous manner.

Demolishing Triablogue: Steve is always prattling about, but never actually proving, modern day miracles

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays of Triablogue entitled

Wednesday, January 08, 2020Miraculous healing and faith-healershttps://billdembski.com/theology-and-religion/faces-of-miracles-chapter-5/#more-54769
This is useful up to a point. Mind you, his experience was limited to an 18-month period. And the sample of faith-healers was very small. Not to mention that the psychic healers are prima facie charlatans from the get-go.
He didn't debunk miraculous healing. He only debunked some faith-healers.
This raises the question of whether there are healers in the sense of gifted individuals with the supernatural ability to heal the sick on a regular basis. That doesn't mean God can't heal through individuals, but it may be on rare occasion. Peter Bide comes to mind.

I've had a challenge to all "miracle happen today" Christians for at least a year now, the main one was directed to Craig Keener (see here and here) , since Hays views Keener's "Miracles" book as a "game-changer".

Us atheists tire from the "how do you know that miracles don't happen today" and the "too many miracle claims for all them to be false" bullshit.  Produce the documentation for the one modern-day miracle you believe is the most impervious to falsification, and let's get started.   

Demolishing Triablogue: Early interest in gospel authorship doesn't make skeptics unreasonable

Jason Engwer of Triablogue tries to make Matthew's authorship of the gospel now bearing his name more reasonable than the skeptical position that says the author is anonymous.  I respond to each of Engwers points.

There would have been early interest in who wrote the gospel.
It's common today to claim that the gospels initially circulated anonymously, even for as long as several decades.

And the fact that even conservative Christian apologists like Mike Licona aren't willing to make a case for Matthew's authorship (see here), nor consider his resurrection testimony "bedrock" (see here) is sufficient, standing alone, to render reasonable the skeptic who says apostle Matthew's connection to the gospel now bearing his name is tenuous at best, which is more than sufficient to justify asserting the author to be anonymous.

Here's something I recently wrote on the subject in the comments section of an old thread:

In that sort of atmosphere of concern for named authority figures, distinguishing among sources, and trying to discern who wrote documents like the gospels, it's far more likely that the gospels were circulating with authorial attributions than that they were circulating anonymously.

Except that the authors were allegedly Jews who lived in a religious climate that approved of anonymously and falsely authored scriptures.  See the OT Pseudepigrapha and Intertestamental literature.  They were quite capable of blindly trusting something merely because it was religious.

There would have been a high degree of interest in the gospels' authorship well before the second half of the second century.

Perhaps among Christians.  I don't see any non-Christians of that period would have cared.

And thank you for helping increase the probability that Matthew authored the heretical "Gospel to the Hebrews".

And early belief in their traditional authorship attributions provides a far better explanation for the prominence of the gospels and how little dispute there was about their authorship.

And thousands of early Christians could seriously believe false rumors about the apostles. See Acts 21:18-24.

In closing, I suggest that people think about the context of early Christianity and whether it was a setting in which the gospels are likely to have circulated anonymously for nearly a century.

Most historians that wrote in the 1st century named themselves, including most NT authors, so the Matthew-author's choice to leave his name out was deliberate, and under your own belief that this gospel is inspired by God, it is therefore God's intent to refuse to name Matthew.  For all you know, trying to prove Matthew's authorship would be against the divine will.  But if you discovered any such thing, no problems, just become a Calvinist.

Christianity wasn't a philosophical system of ideas that were being promoted independently of authority figures.

Then apparently you never heard of apostle Paul.  For all his talk about Jesus, he infamously shows so little interest in the historical Jesus' teachings and requirements that it is reasonable to conclude Paul was a heretic.

Rather, it was a system founded on the authority of named individuals, starting with Jesus and going on to the apostles and other individuals who were named (Matthew 10:1-3, Mark 3:13-19, Ephesians 2:20, etc.).

Except that from what's written, the authority consisted of a live person.  The whole notion that god intended for any of this crap to be written down, is missing from the bible. So for all you know, Christianity died out when the original apostles did.  If the Roman Catholic church can live strong fro 2,000 years while being heretical, so can any cult, including one started by Jesus.

Luke's gospel opens with a reference to the significance of eyewitnesses (1:2), a concept that requires distinguishing among sources (differentiating between those who were eyewitnesses and those who weren't), which would include distinguishing among the authors of written sources.

Except that he doesn't tell the reader that he also copied from Mark, a non-eyewitness.  Luke doesn't declare that he relied on anything other than eyewitnesses.

The fourth gospel expresses an interest in authorship, its own authorship with the implication of concern about authorship more widely (John 21:24).

Which justifies drawing conclusions about the fact that none of the synoptic authors express any such concern.  You cannot have your cake and eat it too.  You cannot simply say John's interest in authorship shows his objectivity, while the synoptic authors who do less can be equally objective.

Ferguson raises doubts about whether Papias was discussing the authorship of the canonical gospels or the authorship of other documents instead, but there was a concern about authorship of gospels or similar documents either way.

That's hardly relevant; the point is that there are good arguments for saying Papias wasn't testifying to the Matthean authorship of what we today call canonical Greek Matthew.

And Papias cited an earlier source (the elder, probably the apostle John), who likewise was interested in authorship issues.

Hearsay within hearsay, which is probably why most conservative Christian scholars refrain from pushing Matthew's authorship and allow liberality.

The same can be said about the authorship concerns expressed in the dispute between Marcionism and Christian orthodoxy. I've cited other sources in the same timeframe, prior to the late second century, with similar authorship interests.

Your general comments about authorship interest from the earliest period do a wonderful job of increasing the probability that other early gospels that didn't make it into the canon (GoH, Thomas) were authentically authored by apostles.  When you start in with your predictable trifling about how the non-canonical gospels are "different" and "worse", we yawn and wonder how much longer we'll have to wait for you to recognize that apostolic gospel authorship doesn't really mean anything if skepticism of Jesus' resurrection can shown reasonable.

Demolishing Triablogue: The Weakness Of The Evidence For Matthew's Authorship

This is my reply to an article by Jason Engwer at Triablogue entitled

The Strength Of The Evidence For Matthew's Authorship

Friday, December 20, 2019

If the gospel attributed to Matthew was written by him, then that's a good line of evidence for the historicity of what he reports about Jesus' childhood.

Which is like saying an eyewitness report is good evidence for the historicity of some alleged event.     That's not "good", that's merely "slightly better than hearsay".

But since objections to the arguments for Jesus' resurrection are weighty and powerful, it hardly matters whether Jesus was the son of God.  Failure is failure, no matter how bright your clothes are.  And failure justifies others to draw certain conclusions.

Matthew's gospel and other early sources (e.g., Acts 1:13-14) put the apostle in contact with people who knew a lot about Jesus' background, such as Jesus himself, his mother, his brothers, and the people of Nazareth.

And Jesus' own immediate family members did not find his miracles the least bit compelling. Mark 3:21, 6:4 and John 7:5.  I've seen how you Triablogue types jump around like fleas on a dog trying to "account for" these verses while trifling that Jesus' miracles were still real.  Keep dreaming.

You think the author of Mark got his material from Peter, who was associated with Mary and other apostles, yet Mark attributes no miracles to Jesus' birth.  Whatever people were wondering about in Mark 6:3, that verse doesn't equal "Jesus was magically conceived."  But Jason Engwer specializes in squeezing blood out of turnips.  So Mark's disinterest in a birth of Jesus that you think was legitimately miraculous and which also testified in favor of Mark's own theme of Jesus as Son of God, is YOUR problem.

What you aren't going to do is prove the unreasonableness of the skeptic who cites Mark's silence on the virgin birth as a justification to accuse Matthew and Luke of lying.

But even conservative scholars don't say much about the evidence for Matthean authorship of the gospel,

Probably because they recognize a trap when they see it.  After all, being conservatives, they would more than likely make a big deal out of Matthew's authorship if they thought doing so could come across as serious argument.

and the few arguments they bring forward don't get developed much.

Probably because they recognize that the evidence in their favor is not very strong and easily falsifiable.  Papias this, logia that, and let's move on.

Here's a collection of articles on the evidence for Matthew's authorship.

I'll start a new blog piece to answer those.

Why Triablogue's endlessly trifling bullshit cannot possibly matter

Triablogue's Jason Engwer puts a shitload of effort into trying to prove that the Enfield Poltergeist was real.

He does this so that he can then prove atheism wrong.

But as I've noted before, my skepticism of Jesus' resurrection renders the alleged wrongness of atheism irrelevant.

Even supposing atheism is wrong, that doesn't mean "atheist is in trouble with the Christian god".

All it means is that a god exists.

Since 

a) the apostle Paul said Jesus' failure to rise from the dead would turn Christians into false witnesses who are still in their sins (1st Cor. 15:15), and

b) I continue beating down the way Engwer, Hays, Licona, Habermas and W.L. Craig interpret the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, 

it really doesn't matter if a god exists, the fact that I am reasonable to deduce this god is not the Christian god creates the stark possibility that the Christians are in just as much trouble with this god for misrepresenting him, as they think atheists are for denying his basic existence.

Before you can leap from "you are wrong" to "you are unreasonable", you have to show that the being wrong is more likely to lead to some type of disaster.  But if the evidence for Jesus' resurrection is as unpersuasive and weak as I claim, the best the apologists could possibly be left with is that there is some "god" out there, so that atheists remain wrong even if it be reasonable to deny Jesus rose from the dead.

At that point, whether that god even cares whether anybody misrepresents him or denies him, would be forever open to blind speculation, except for trifling Christians who would automatically default to the OT god upon discovery that the NT is bullshit.

But according to Deut. 13, even when the prophet does a real miracle, he STILL might be leading people into error, and therefore, such miracle-worker would STILL suffer the wrath of this god.  

That is, according to the OT principle, Jesus' miracle of rising from the dead does NOT end the discussion of whether the OT god approves of him.  But I have yet to see any Christian argument that the OT YHWH approves of Jesus, they rather think his resurrection miracle is the end of the debate.

They also blindly insist that because Jesus uses the divine title, he IS YHWH, a contention that has kept the church divided since even before the Council of Nicaea.

Therefore, the Christians are getting precisely nowhere by wasting such enormous amounts of time trying to prove atheism wrong, or that a spiritual dimension exists, or that physicalism is false.  Atheists don't start becoming unreasonable unless their being in the wrong can be proven to have likely disastrous consequences.  Sure, I might be wrong to say Japan is located in Australia, but unless you could show that this wrongness will likely lead to harmful effects on myself, you are never going to "prove" that I "should" care about being wrong.  

I'm pretty sure that Bigfoot is a hoax and was never anything more than a fairy tale and a man in a monkey suit...but why should I care if that is wrong and the creature is a genuine cryptid?    Does Bigfoot denial have a history of causing skeptics to get the flu more often than the average person?

Because the evidence for Jesus' resurrection is poor, and because the NT doctrine of eternal conscious torment in the afterworld contradicts the OT concept of god's justice, the atheist has no reason to 'worry' about atheism being 'wrong', at worst they will experience nothing more than permanent extinction of consciousness, a fate they already accept.  Pissing off god is about as fearful as pissing off a puppy.

Therefore, trying to prove atheism is wrong is a fruitlessly and purely academic waste of time (i.e., has no serious application to anybody's actual life beyond mere idle intellectual curiosity, and is equal to trying to prove somebody else wrong about whether the Trojan War ever happened).

There's a possibility that angry space aliens will zap you...but how much effort should an atheist put into protecting herself from such disaster?  Maybe always wear a radar-deflecting hat?

There's a possibility that a wild animal will kill the atheist after they walk in the front door of their house, but how much effort should the atheist put into protecting herself from such possible disaster?  Maybe peek in every window before going in the house, or installing motion detectors?  FUCK YOU.

There's a possibility some "god" will roast atheists alive in hell forever, but how much effort should the atheist put into protecting herself from such disaster?  Maybe spend the next 50 years trying to figure out which view of God is correct so they don't end up joining the wrong cult and end up making things worse for themselves by adding the sin of heresy to their existing sin of unbelief?  FUCK YOU.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  in light of god's hiddenness on the one hand, and the Christian apologist's mouthiness on the other, it appears Christian apologists love atheists more than their own god does.  Irony never sucked quite as much as that.

James Patrick Holding doesn't specialize in a Christian's "authority"

In the comment section to one of James Patrick Holding's videos, somebody brought up an unrelated question that one would figure Mr. Holding would be able to provide some guidance on:

Primitive Cash2 weeks ago (edited)I’ve an unrelated question about Priesthood authority in this day vs in the times of the New Testament: Is it relevant to have authority from God in this age? If so, How does one know without question that a faith genuinely has said authority? I was LDS, and I once believed I had authority from Him to heal the sick, give blessings, and cast out demons, but I have found evidence that makes such assertions questionable at best.
tektontv2 weeks agoThat kind of question is not my bailiwick. Anyone else want to try?
Logician_Bones1 week agoWell, not sure what you mean by "authority" but the last bit reminds me of the findings I've mentioned before on here reported through CMI re: Alien Intrusion with modern evidence that Christians who call on Jesus to stop experiences faked by demons are indeed freed from the experience (evidently demons masquerading as alien abductors). The Bible does suggest this sort of thing. I don't see much else if you mean in the miraculous category and have talked about why miracles are normally reserved for credentialing authorship of new Scripture and the canon is now closed. The protection from demons makes sense as possibly a nearly sole exception since demons aren't supposed to be intervening in the first place so aren't part of the normal way the world works that God normally lets happen in the fallen world so that miracles can be reserved for credentials of the Bible. This doesn't necessarily include all healings; it's only publicly proveable miracles that have to be reserved normally, but I wouldn't say "authority." We request things of God; it's up to him, since he alone is omniscient, which to actually say yes to. (And be very careful with claims that a yes answer HAS been given in the sense of miracles of intervention versus timing; most humans aren't good at judging that kind of thing.) If you mean authority in some other sense not sure but you suggested the answer yourself; go by evidence.
Primitive Cash1 week agoLogician_Bones Thank you.
Leonel Huicho1 week agoBy Authority I Guess You mean authority to Interpret Scripture, It was always something Inherited, In Earlier Judaism for Example, God allowed scribes to modify certain passages as long as their teachings weren't altered. Regarding if Certain Religious Institution has the authority, It depends on a lot of factors, But One of them that I would be on how much they hold to the teachings of Christ, The early Apostles and the early Church.
Primitive Cash1 week ago (edited)Leonel Huicho By ‘authority’, I mean having genuine access to abilities that would be seen as supernatural and therefore only accessible to God, such as spiritual healing, casting out devils, the ability to speak a language you didn’t know previously, et cetera. The LDS faith appears to exhibit many factors that reflect what is shown in the Bible, yet I see evidence that they are NOT the religion with His authority.
Primitive Cash1 week agoStrange, no one has answered my leading question about the relevancy of having God’s authority this day.

Logician_Bones6 days ago​@Primitive Cash Not sure you've defined it clearly enough to see how my answer doesn't apply to your leading question. Why would it be relevant to have access in a sense called "authority" (versus requests and there being good reasons those requests probably normally shouldn't be granted today) to miracles? I would suggest that unbiblical religious views may go for that idea because they're sharing a bit of the concept of humanism -- wanting to be gods to some extent themselves, rather than admitting we're purely created by God and he has all the "authority" in the normal sense of the word). He gives us delegated authority with constraints and consequences if we behave immorally, but not inherently for miracles; why single out miracles? The only reason I can think of is for evidential purposes, but my answer covers this already. We already have sufficient evidence from the miraculous historical support for the Bible which stands for all time and all people. We shouldn't need more more more; that's actually a kind of mental unhealthiness to constantly need something new when the old is sufficient (along the lines of what James said about failing to do what the Bible says being like a person who looks in the mirror and walks away and immediately forgets what he looks like). It probably turns into a sort of circular-reasoning trap where they are so used to pushing the supposed importance of authority for no obvious reason other than self-serving ones that then all else becomes judged by this, kind of like "sovereignty" for Calvinists or "reason" (falsely so-called) for atheists or fundamentalism for fundies. I think it's reasonable simply to ask that those claiming such things are necessary provide sound, independant support for this claim, and if they can't, then we don't really need to disprove it per se, but have no reason to accept it either. (And it should also be enough that we do have sound support for the Bible!)

Since Holding claimed the question about priesthood authority did not implicate his "bailwick" (area of expertise) he didn't comment on it.  However, we can take PrimtiveCash's concerns one point at a time and provide what would qualify as a biblically justified response.  In doing so, we'll uncover certain bases for skepticism and therefore infer the real reason Mr. Holding retreated from what is otherwise a straightforward question with biblically straightforward answers:  You start trying to 'explain' why the authority of 1st centuy christians cannot be detected among 21st century Christians, and you run the risk of convincing yourself that the NT promises are nothing but empty idealism, and are accordingly reasonably rejected by non-Christians.

Primitive Cash2 weeks ago (edited)I’ve an unrelated question about Priesthood authority in this day vs in the times of the New Testament:

That's probably why Holding backed off...you are doomed to a land of necessary subjectivity if you try to "prove" that any biblical truth about 1st century Christians is applicable to 21st century Christians.  Jesus not coming back for 2,000 years doesn't sound like "quickly".  Holding will reply that he is a preterist and thus isn't bothered by the failure of Christ to float down from the clouds in literal fashion as expected by billions of Christians today. But the one bible verse that nukes Preterism is Acts 1:11...a verse that completely forbids spiritualizing the 2nd Coming the way Preterists necessarily do:

 6 So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?"
 7 He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;
 8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."
 9 And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
 10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them.
 11 They also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven."
 12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.   (Acts 1:6-12 NAU)

By the words "in just the same way", the angels validate the traditional Christian view that Jesus would literally float down out of the clouds "in just the same way" that he allegeldy ascended into them.  There is no way to reconcile Acts 1:11 with the spiritualized interpretation of the 2nd Coming that Preterists hold.

Anyway, back to Primitive Cash:

Is it relevant to have authority from God in this age?

As long as you believe Matthew the apostle authored the gospel now bearing his name, the answer is "yes":

First,  in Matthew 10, Jesus authorizes the original disciples to go around doing miracles, vv. 1-16.

Second, Jesus then follows up immediately with statements that apply to equally well to future generations of Christians, vv. 16-28.

Third, Jesus follows up with statements that most Christians today apply to their own modern situation vv 29-42

Fourth, the allegedly risen Christ specifies that his disciples are to take ALL the teachings they received and pass them on to future Gentile converts.  It's the part of the Great Commission most people miss:

 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
 19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matt. 28:18-20 NAU)

Since Matthew 10 is clearly part of the "all that I commanded you", this Great Commission was also telling the apostles to convey to future Gentile converts those comments Jesus made in Matthew 10...which would mean commissioning and exhorting new Gentile converts to perform miracles by the authority of God:

1 Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. (Matt. 10:1 NAU)

Since it is only dispentationalists who have any prayer of trying to delimit the "all" of Matthew 28:20, I suppose Mr. Holding will, upon reading this, suddenly discover the blessed assurance of dispensationalism, then protect his pride by the childish thing he does best...hurling insulting epithets at anybody who differs.  As if to disagree with Holding's bible bullshit placed one on the level of those who deny the existence of trees.

The gospels have more of the same.  For example, all scholars are agreed that John is the latest of the 4 gospels, which means he wrote likely around 80 a.d. when the original apostles had mostly died off, yet as long as you insist it was apostle John who wrote it, then it must have been apostle John who was encouraging just any reader to not only believe upon the basis of his words (20:31), but that Christians in future generations would do even greater miracles than Christ did:

 10 "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.
 11 "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.
 12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.
 13 "Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
 14 "If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.
 15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
 16 "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;   (Jn. 14:10-16 NAU)

If John was writing these things around 80 or 90 a.d., its pretty clear that he was assuring even the new Christians of the same decades that they could do 'greater' works than what Jesus himself did. 

Holding will try to escape the obvious falsehood of the promise by spiritualizing "greater works" and then pretend that these only refer to canonizing the NT, or successfully evangelizing Gentiles, or anything else that can easily escape positive falsification, but the immediate context requires the "greater works" to be "anything" the converts ask (v. 14).  Later NT authors did not allow any exegetical room for the possibility that god might not want to heal the person you ask god to heal:

 13 Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises.
 14 Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;
 15 and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.
 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.   (Jas. 5:13-16 NAU)

Holding will say God's sovereign right to say "no" to such prayers is assured by other bible verses, but

a) bible inerrancy is an obviously false doctrine that not even inerrantists can agree on, despite more than 50 years of trying. Just ask Holding how stupid and obstinate people like Norman Geisler are.  Then watch him change his tune when you ask whether Mike Licona's openeness to error in the bible make him worthy of equally insulting invective.  Therefore, the doctrine does not deserve to be exalted in anybody's mind to the status of governing hermeneutic, forcing the reader to believe that the only interpretation of a bible verse that can be correct is one that can be harmonized with the rest of the bible, and;

b) because bible inerrancy is so unsettled and controversial, we can only do good things by refusing to use it as a check on the accuracy of an interpretation of a bible verse, remain open to the possibility that the NT author spoke in contradiction to something else in the bible, and demand that one's interpretation be based on the author's own assertions.  As soon as you start using outside data (bible inerrancy, social sciences, whatever) to help interpret the bile verse, you are imposing things on the text that could just as easily be wrong as right.

Therefore, we have a reasonable rational basis to say "fuck you" to bible inerrancy, reject using it as a hermeneutic, and insist that limiting ourselves to the text as much as possible is probably going to yield a more objective interpretation. Thus it cannot be unreasonable to say James intended this promise to be unqualified, and therefore, to charge him with error since the promise is obviously empty.  Therefore, we are not "ureasonable" to say that Jesus and others in the NT promised the unqualified future generations of Christians the authority to do miraculous healings, etc.  The fact that such things obviously never happen today, does not mean this interpretation is false, it means the NT authors were giving the readers empty promises. 

 Back to Primitive Cash:

If so, How does one know without question that a faith genuinely has said authority?

That's a good question since there is no particular denomination or group in the history of Christianity that can show they have any more ability than the others to fulfill Jesus' promise to effect miracle healings.

I was LDS, and I once believed I had authority from Him to heal the sick, give blessings, and cast out demons, but I have found evidence that makes such assertions questionable at best.

The dilemma here is whether Christian apologists can convincingly mitigate the failure of such biblical promises by pretending that such promises were so limited to certain early groups that the apologist can reconcile the "truth" of such promises with the obvious fact that the promises do not hold up for today's Christians.

For the fuckhead who thinks I blindly presume the biblical promise of miraculous healing never happens when I cannot possibly claim to have such extensive knowledge of world history, they are advised that I posted a direct challenge to Craig Keener to back up his claim that ANY miracle has happened within the last 100 years.  He has never responded to the challenge.  See here and here.

Then let such fuckhead Christians remember that many of their own are "cessationists" who are Christian in faith, but who insist the age of miracles died out with the apostles, and thus such Christians are no more impressed by "modern accounts of miracles"  than I am.  Richard B. Gaffin writes such an article for the Christian apologetics site "whitehoseinn", see here.  He is a Calvinist, which means he disagrees with Calvinist Steve Hays of Triablogue, who believes miracles still happen today.  Apparently, not even joining the right church and believing the right theology does anything to guard against your falling into error. 

It's almost as if there's no god guiding this bullshit, where people end up after serious bible study is determined by nothing more than their ability to learn and their circumstances.  The idea that god is "guiding" them is total dogshit.

Let's continue responding.  Next item up for bids is LogicianBones, who seems to think excess verbiage might hoodwink the more gullible into thinking he has anything to say that remotely scares off skeptics:

Logician_Bones1 week agoWell, not sure what you mean by "authority"

The right or power from God to cause miraculous healing.

but the last bit reminds me of the findings I've mentioned before on here reported through CMI re: Alien Intrusion with modern evidence that Christians who call on Jesus to stop experiences faked by demons are indeed freed from the experience (evidently demons masquerading as alien abductors).

But this avoids the real question. The issue is not whether demons take form as space aliens to divert Christians away from important subjects, but how we can know which Christians today have authority from god to perform any type of miracle. 

The Bible does suggest this sort of thing.

hence, the problem created for you and your inability to point to any miracle in the last 100 years that you think is the most impervious to falsification.  You don't dare suggest an example without running the risk of having it shoved back in your face with empirically justified contempt. 

I don't see much else if you mean in the miraculous category and have talked about why miracles are normally reserved for credentialing authorship of new Scripture and the canon is now closed.

Sorry, I've never heard of any "miracles" being done to "credential" any scripture authorship, whether the bible or otherwise, nor am I aware of any "miracle" done to demonstrate that the "canon" ever became "closed"...unless you equate mere historical happenstance and unwillingness of some of the church to expand on the canon after the 4th century, to be a "miracle"?

The protection from demons makes sense as possibly a nearly sole exception since demons aren't supposed to be intervening in the first place so aren't part of the normal way the world works that God normally lets happen in the fallen world so that miracles can be reserved for credentials of the Bible.

Hurry up and give us one modern-day miracle that you think is the most impervious to falsification.

This doesn't necessarily include all healings; it's only publicly proveable miracles that have to be reserved normally, but I wouldn't say "authority."

Oh, name a "publicly provable" miracle.

We request things of God; it's up to him, since he alone is omniscient, which to actually say yes to.

No, you simply mistake systematic theology for the Holy Spirit, and then you use the rest of the bible as the rose-colored glasses by which to interpret otherwise unqualified biblical promises that believers will do miracles.  Read James 5:15, the context does not permit reading a "but maybe God for sovereign reasons might not do a particular healing" into it.  And I already showed the reasonableness of skeptics and others to reject using bible inerrancy as a hermeneutic.  So you are stuck with an interpretation of a biblical promise in James 5 that normative and non-controversial rules of interpretation shows to be reasonable, despite the fact that the promise thus proves to be empty.  That is, the bible's assurances of how "authority" manifests itself in the life of Christians, are nothing but unrealistic idealism gone to seed.  FUCK YOU.

(And be very careful with claims that a yes answer HAS been given in the sense of miracles of intervention versus timing; most humans aren't good at judging that kind of thing.) If you mean authority in some other sense not sure but you suggested the answer yourself; go by evidence.
Primitive Cash1 week agoLogician_Bones Thank you.
Leonel Huicho1 week agoBy Authority I Guess You mean authority to Interpret Scripture, It was always something Inherited, In Earlier Judaism for Example, God allowed scribes to modify certain passages as long as their teachings weren't altered. Regarding if Certain Religious Institution has the authority, It depends on a lot of factors, But One of them that I would be on how much they hold to the teachings of Christ, The early Apostles and the early Church.

But the dichotomy between one's interpretations and the "teachings of Christ" is false, as you don't know any teaching of Christ apart from interpretation.  Fundies are constantly talking about how something in the bible doesn't need interpretation, but they are sadly mistaken, the very act of discerning what the text means, constitutes "interpretation".  Even if reading the front page of yesterdays New York Times headline involves using less controversial assumptions in the interpretive process.

Primitive Cash1 week ago (edited)Leonel Huicho By ‘authority’, I mean having genuine access to abilities that would be seen as supernatural and therefore only accessible to God, such as spiritual healing, casting out devils, the ability to speak a language you didn’t know previously, et cetera.

Thanks for clarifying.  Might be nice if the Christian believers in modern-day miracles actually produced the one they think most impervious to falsification, and accordingly stick their necks out, instead of ceaselessly hiding behind a subterfuge of methodological disagreement.  See how I steamrolled Steve Hays and his attempt to pretend that skepticism of miracles is unreasonable, here.  How does Hays keep the door open to miracles happening to day?  By using absurdly low standards of evidence, then accusing skeptics of being unreasonable when they demand that such miracle evidence meet the same level of criteria used in most criminal investigations.

The LDS faith appears to exhibit many factors that reflect what is shown in the Bible, yet I see evidence that they are NOT the religion with His authority.
Primitive Cash1 week agoStrange, no one has answered my leading question about the relevancy of having God’s authority this day.

From what I wrote above, you can see why:  They start trying to answer your question in any serious way, and a brick wall of "why is there no serious evidence for the perpetuity of any spiritual gift today" will hit them at about 184 mph.  So by pretending "that's not my bailwick" one can escape such certain embarrassment.  Now leave Mr. Holding alone so he can fly 1000 miles to give his next "bible doesn't teach a flat earth" lecture to the next group of 25 people.

Logician_Bones6 days ago​@Primitive Cash Not sure you've defined it clearly enough to see how my answer doesn't apply to your leading question. Why would it be relevant to have access in a sense called "authority" (versus requests and there being good reasons those requests probably normally shouldn't be granted today) to miracles?

Because the bible promises all believers the ability to work miracles, which means it sucks to be you, an inerrantist who never sees any contradiction between bible promises and reality.  you aren't going to make a reasonable case that spiritual gifts were restricted to the 1st century, so if they fail to manifest today, its because the bible promises otherwise are empty.

I would suggest that unbiblical religious views may go for that idea because they're sharing a bit of the concept of humanism -- wanting to be gods to some extent themselves, rather than admitting we're purely created by God and he has all the "authority" in the normal sense of the word). He gives us delegated authority with constraints and consequences if we behave immorally, but not inherently for miracles; why single out miracles?

Ahhh, you are backtracking already.  You BETTER try to think of some way to exempt the miraculous from this discussion, otherwise, you'll have to explain why modern Christians cannot produce any evidence that they ever perform any of the healings or miracles which the NT promises to all future generations of believers.

The only reason I can think of is for evidential purposes, but my answer covers this already. We already have sufficient evidence from the miraculous historical support for the Bible which stands for all time and all people.

You are also high on crack:  I've been asking apologists to hit me with whatever argument for Christianity they think the most impervious to falsification, whether historicity of Jesus' resurrection, of fulfillment of messianic prophecy, or proof of bible inerrancy, or whatever.  So far, nobody from Mr. Holding's gang has dared confront me with any such thing.  Getting their ass kicked all over hell and back probably doesn't help promote their agenda of confident dogmatism, so naturally, they bow out.  This is true also for Hays, Engwer and the fools at Triablogue, who clearly know about my challenges, but don't do jack shit about it.

We shouldn't need more more more; that's actually a kind of mental unhealthiness to constantly need something new when the old is sufficient (along the lines of what James said about failing to do what the Bible says being like a person who looks in the mirror and walks away and immediately forgets what he looks like).

Then count me out: i'm only asking for one solid pro-Christian argument that actually works.  So far, you lose.   I've already answered the Josh McDowell' bullshit, and I constantly answer Triablogue and other apologists.  If you think you have anything more powerful than they have, feel free to drop by, and let's get started with the one argument you think is most impervious to falsification.  Otherwise, take your confident rhetorical posturing and shove it up your loquacious ass.

It probably turns into a sort of circular-reasoning trap where they are so used to pushing the supposed importance of authority for no obvious reason other than self-serving ones that then all else becomes judged by this, kind of like "sovereignty" for Calvinists or "reason" (falsely so-called) for atheists or fundamentalism for fundies.

Wow, you mean even after you accept christ, there's no guarantee of being transformed into Christ's image?  Then apparently the promise of salvation is empty, since any change you made to your sinful self since you "got saved" can just as easily be explained in purely naturalistic terms. 

I think it's reasonable simply to ask that those claiming such things are necessary provide sound, independant support for this claim,

Ok, I see nothing in the present world that indicates ANY part of the NT is still valid today.  Any truths about today's Christians are easily explainable in purely naturalistic terms, which means it is reasonable for the skeptic to reject the notion that today's Christians have experienced ANY type of "miracle". For the last time, if you think that's wrong, take the one miracle you believe is most impervious to falsification, and let's get started.

and if they can't, then we don't really need to disprove it per se, but have no reason to accept it either. (And it should also be enough that we do have sound support for the Bible!)

Since you are preaching to the choir, I no more need to "refute" this than I "need" to refute the Brownsville Revival.