James Patrick Holding has committed perjury at least 10 times

My 5th libel lawsuit against James Patrick Holding starts with a Complaint that is 170 pages long, includes most of the content of the previous Complaints, and proves Holding has committed perjury in a court document at least 10 times.  

Update February 9, 2021:

I have since filed a "Third Amended Complaint", which is 534 pages long.  You'll be surprised to know that in Florida, where Holding lives and where I thus filed this lawsuit, truth is not an absolute defense to defamation.  If the truthful comment was posted with a bad motive, that is sufficient to impose defamation liability on Holding, and not merely on his Apologetics Afield corporation, but on Holding personally, as explained in the Complaint.  And what fool doesn't know that Holding, for the last 20 years, has demonstrated little more than an attitude of hostility, spite and ill-will toward everybody who dare challenge his religious opinions?  This Complaint compiles all of the disputed libels and demonstrated that Holding has committed the crime of perjury numerous times.  Download here. (update, October 13, 2021: the Court has since required that I filed a fourth amended Complaint. So I did, but it is less comprehensive than the earlier one.  The details that will satisfy Christians that James Patrick Holding is an unrepentant slanderer are not included in the fourth amended complaint, but regardless, that complaint still highlights Holding's illegal tax schemes.  Download here.

The most egregious of these instances of perjury was what I documented as his "tenth" act of perjury, namely, his having stated in a response to an interrogatory in 2015 that he has "never deliberately intended to insult anyone by his communications", an answer that is followed by his attorney's signature.  See page 486 ff.  You probably don't need to be told that I then use up 30 pages of the Complaint proving that Holding was not only lying here, he KNEW he was lying when he gave that answer.

James Patrick Holding never deliberately intended to insult anybody?  ARE YOU HIGH ON CRACK?

In a prior settlement offer, Holding proposed that I submit my counter-apologetics book drafts to him for editing, then he would assist me in getting them published.

So you might want to contact Holding and ask him what precedent there is in the New Testament for Christians to help anti-Christians publish anti-Christian works. jphold@att.net. His newer email address is: jphold99@gmail.com.   Or contact him by responding to one of his videos here.

Maybe he'll do a video on that subject, and shock the Christian world with an argument that Jesus might very well want a Christian to help a non-Christian publish blasphemy.

Then you might want to ask the world's smartest Christian defender of biblical inerrancy why there seems to be a contradiction between his desire to help anti-Christians publish anti-Christian works, and the apostle Paul's belief that anti-Christian speech must be suppressed (Titus 1:11, Psalm 101:3, Matthew 23:15).

UPDATE:
You may wonder whether Mr. Holding now understands that his prior "insult" style of apologetics was sinful.  I think he does, but he is also aware of the problems that bit of honesty creates.  If he admitted his slandering people in the past was sinful, he'd have to apologize to them, or at least to those whom he slandered the most, like me.

Mr. Holding is a big-mouth "know-it-all" who has constructed his internet presence to make sure he is constantly surrounded by decidedly less informed and fawning fans who salivate at his every word.  Apologizing would be a blow to his pride.  When you are plagued with the sin of pride as deeply as Mr. Holding is, you will not do anything that would entail that you apologize to anybody, ever.  If Holding was arrested for deliberately running over a small child in anger, he'd probably become a Calvinist before he ever got into the cop car.  If James Patrick Holding did it, then it cannot possibly be a sin.  But notice how the bible condemns Mr. Holding's filthy slanders and "reviling":


 9 I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people;
 10 I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.
 11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one.
 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
 13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES. (1 Cor. 5:9-13 NAU)


 18 "But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.
 19 "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
 20 "These are the things which defile the man; (Matt. 15:18-20 NAU)

 3 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints;
 4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
 5 For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. (Eph. 5:3-5 NAU)

 6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience,
 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.
 8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.
 9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices,
 10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him-- (Col. 3:6-10 NAU)

I offer more here.  And here.  And here.

See especially my 2017 blog entry providing all the reasons Holding (a closet homosexual) is disqualified, under biblical criteria, from possessing any Christian "teacher" position.  See here.

I also just advertised this post at Holding's YouTube channel, here's a screenshot:

======================----------------------------

I also disclosed the latest to one of Holding's followers "Zachary Cawley", who surprised me with his wisdom in refusing to draw a conclusion until the end of the case:

The following was posted to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbSUszyDIZQ   on August 4,  about 4 pm Pacific Standard Time.

Barry Jones

2 hours ago

Praise Report:  "Christian" apologist James Patrick Holding was sued for libel due to many false statements he posted to a domain he purchased exclusively for the purpose.  The domain provider, InMotion Hosting, agreed with me that the content violated their terms of service, and accordingly suspended the website.

Just how much do you suppose that's going to hurt Holding's defense at trial?

See the details at https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2020/08/james-patrick-holding-libelous.html

Maybe the world's smartest Christian apologist can now explain why he thinks InMotion Hosting's lawyers are "morons" or "dumbasses", since those are the epithets Holding has, for the last 20 years, hurled at anybody else who dare disagree with his opinions.  Only in this case, InMotion Hosting's lawyers are also disagreeing with the opinions of Holding's own lawyer, Scott Livingston. 

Zachary Cawley
35 minutes ago (edited)
What Holding's case has to do with this vid, I cannot fathom. Regardless, the types of people he calls "morons" are the ones that would not hesitate to hurl insults at him just for being a Christian. In which case, they receive their just desserts when called out for critcal errors in their exegesis of any given biblical text.
 So far as the civil case regarding "libel," it's probably going to end up the same as all the other defamation cases Doscher filed. Does he even have a reputation to speak of?
 EDIT: I find the fact you chose to bring that up here, when I said nothing of Holding and Doscher in the video, to be extremely telling. You are so eager to bring him and his supporters down, you are willing to disrupt the flow of the actual topic in order to do it. That is the impression I am getting, anyway.
 

 Barry Jones

30 minutes ago

@Zachary Cawley yes, he does.  But perhaps the more important concern for you is the bible's teaching that Christian "brothers" who constantly 'revile' others are not qualified to be "teachers", so that you need to stop viewing Holding as a teacher until he repents of his slanders:

 11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, OR A REVILER, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one.

 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?

 13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES. (1 Cor. 5:11-13 NAU)

Doesn't it bother you that while Mr. Holding wants to be viewed as a christian "teacher", he fails the biblical criteria for such office? 

 Zachary Cawley
19 minutes ago
@Barry Jones Last I checked, he is not a pastor anyway even if what you say is true. Also, I never said he was a teacher, so I have no idea where this is coming from. You have yet to even establish what those "slanderous" accusations were. I will wait for the close of the case to conclude anything, as I was not even aware of this new case you refer to. Quick to hear, slow to speak, in other words.

 Barry Jones

16 minutes ago

@Zachary Cawley You said "the types of people he calls "morons" are the ones that would not hesitate to hurl insults at him just for being a Christian."

I reply:

If he calls them names for the reason you gave, then he is violating NT ethics, which forbid retaliatory name-calling.   1st Peteter 2:21-23.

You said:  " In which case, they receive their just desserts when called out for critcal errors in their exegesis of any given biblical text."

I reply:

You got it all wrong, bro.  the bible specifically forbids you from fellowshipping with "brothers" who constantly "revile" others, 1st Cor, 5:9-13.

You said:

So far as the civil case regarding "libel," it's probably going to end up the same as all the other defamation cases Doscher filed.

I reply:

If InMotion Hosting's lawyer felt the content was sufficiently libelous to deem it a punishable violation of their terms of service, that counts as the professional legal opinion of somebody other than Doscher, that the libelous comments documented in his latest Complaint really are libelous.

You said:

 Does he even have a reputation to speak of?

  

I reply:

You don't understand Florida's libel law.  Florida does not accept the "libel-proof" doctrine, therefore, Florida does not recognize the notion that someone has such a bad reputation that it cannot be further tarnished by libel. 

You are also manifesting your spiritual immaturity.  the issue is not whether I have a reputation to speak of, but whether Holding has violated any biblical ethic applicable to him in defaming me.  He did.  Go ahead, google "bible defamation gossip slander reviling", the bible says nothing good about these vices.

You also forget that Holding's own mentor Gary Habermas stopped publicly endorsing him because of Holding's foul unChrist-like mouth.  Both Habermas and Licona condemn Holding's insulting-style in no uncertain terms, along with Dr. Rorhrbough, founding member of the Context Group, who said Holding's article justifying insulting speech was an "obvious perversion" of Rohrbaugh's work and the NT itself.  I can provide the documentation if you are interested

Barry Jones
11 minutes ago
@Zachary Cawley You said:
@Barry Jones Last I checked, he is not a pastor anyway even if what you say is true. "
 I reply:
that's irrelevant:  you can be a "teacher" without being a "pastor".  So his failing the teacher criteria continues to condemn his ministry, especially given that the express purpose of his ministry is to create "educational" materials.
 You said:
Also, I never said he was a teacher, so I have no idea where this is coming from.
 I reply:
You don't need to say he is a teacher.  Holding holds himself out as a Christian teacher, that's enough, it doesn't require your acceptance before his claim can be refuted from the bible and his own long list of "reviling" sins.
 you said:
You have yet to even establish what those "slanderous" accusations were.
 I reply,
that's why I gave you the link to that latest 170-page Complaint. Read it.
 Here's the blog page with the link, again:
https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2020/06/james-patrick-holding-has-committed.html
 You said:   I will wait for the close of the case to conclude anything, as I was not even aware of this new case you refer to. Quick to hear, slow to speak, in other word
 I reply:
that's far wiser than most of Holding's followers, who cannot imagine him as anything other than a manga warrior who never does anything worthy of cutting off fellowship.
 

Barry Jones

6 minutes ago

@Zachary Cawley You said:

EDIT: I find the fact you chose to bring that up here, when I said nothing of Holding and Doscher in the video, to be extremely telling. You are so eager to bring him and his supporters down, you are willing to disrupt the flow of the actual topic in order to do it. That is the impression I am getting, anyway.

I reply:

that's the  wrong impression, I had no intention of disrupting a conversation, but I had no other way to get in contact with you, and regardless, if your faith hero is biblically disqualified from holding any office of Christian "teacher", that's probably more important, from a spiritual standpoint, than your youtube notification that you don't want to become involved in a spat between "eso" and "filthy".

my reply to Hank Hanegraaff on James Patrick Holding and origins of morality

Bible Answer Man26K subscribers
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On the Bible Answer Man broadcast, host Hank Hanegraaff relates a conversation he had with his daughter who is attending college. While explaining that morality is not dependent on God, one of her liberal professors invoked the Euthyphro dilemma. Not knowing how to deal with this conundrum, she went to Hank's book, The Complete Bible Answer Book Collector’s Edition and was able to answer this objection, and in doing so, stressed the need for apologetics on college campuses. Read our JOURNAL article "Out of the Nest and Off to College: A Time for Exploration" for FREE on our website https://www.equip.org/article/out-of-...

Barry Jones13 seconds ago (edited)
Morality obviously comes from a person's environmental conditioning, and how they react to their environment is governed by their genetic predisposition. The idea that atheists cannot explain morality without borrowing "capital" from Christianity or theism, is absurd. Frank Turek pushes this criticism the most, and I steamroll him at my own blog: https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2018/08/frank-tureks-absurd-belief-in-objective.html I'm so skeptical of the Holy Spirit "moving through argument" that I think conversion to Christianity on the basis of argument has nothing more spiritual to it than becoming convinced by the evidence that a criminal defendant is guilty. While the Christian will insist on leaving room for the biblical "necessity" of the Holy Spirit to move in the heart of the unbeliever, the Holy Spirit is more likely nothing more than a gratuitous afterthought. Thousands of heretical Christians also insist the only reason they converted to the "truth" was the HOly Spirit's prompting, so apparently, this highly esoteric view does not lend itself very well to the cause of truth-discovery, it is merely a Christian refusal to close the door on a "biblical" truth for which there is precisely ZERO evidence.



Barry Jones40 seconds ago (edited)
Hank should also worry about taking the log out of his own eye before he judges others. Hank allows James Patrick Holding to author CRI Journal articles, yet Mr. Holding is a closet homosexual and has been sued multiple times for libel, and has never answered those charges on the merits.

Holding is currently being sued for libel by me. 

It is very reasonable to say that if one's spiritual walk with Christ is more important than 'argument', then Hank needs to fire Mr. Holding until Holding repents of his 20-year long intentional disobedience to Ephesians 5:4, Colossians 3:8, etc. 

Until Hank cuts off fellowship from Mr. Holding, Hank will be guilty of disobeying 1st Cor. 5:11-13, because Holding is a full-time "reviler" and thus is living in sin, not merely having a few spiritual hiccups along the way. 

This is to say nothing of the fact that while Hank's morals are conservative and Evangelical, Mr. Holding is a closet homosexual, or at least he was for most of his "apologetics" career, and if he gave up that sin, he certainly has never evinced the slightest repentance over it, nor any repentance for his ceaseless sins of reviling and slander.  If conservative evangelicals first ask "are you walking in the light of Christ?" before they allow some "teacher" to teach, then CRI needs to fire Holding and repent of their ever having known him.

So, has Hank ever heard of the Matthew 18 process? Or does he disagree with apostle Paul and say "reviling" is not a sin? https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2019/10/my-new-warning-to-another-follower-of.html
https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2019/01/james-patrick-holding-unconscionable.html
https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2017/06/james-patrick-holding-disqualified-by.html
https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2017/05/james-patrick-holding-formerly-robert.html

James Patrick Holding violates Proverbs 13:5-6

I have decided to start a new series at this blog. 

James Patrick Holding is a Christian apologist, who for the last 20 years has not made himself known by anything much more than his love of slander and insulting rhetoric against anybody who disagrees with his view of the bible.

Mr. Holding lives in both perpetual and willful violation of those biblical ethics that most Christian scholars agree apply to the modern-day Christian.

The first four words for the title to each of these new blog-pieces will be  "James Patrick Holding violates", and the words that follow will describe the specific bible verse or passage that Holding lives in violation of.

Try to keep in mind, as of the date of this first post (noon, October 25, 2019), my third defamation lawsuit against Holding is still pending.  It was filed earlier this year, and despite Holding's attempt to suppress the truth by filing a frivolous motion to dismiss, the Court delayed so long ruling on it that we were required to start exchanging discovery.  But Mr. Holding's reply to my first round of discovery questions was dishonest and illegal.  I will give those documents to anybody who asks.  Email me at barryjoneswhat@gmail.com, or reply to this post here. 

Mr. Holding's lawyer is also a professing "Christian".  So you might wonder:  Even if there is no necessary contradiction between being a Christian and being a lawyer, what should we think of a "Christian" lawyer who refuses to advise his client to plead guilty, and pretends that his client's obviously libelous words justify the thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend in front of a jury, when a simple "I'm sorry, I was wrong", would more than likely save everybody the trouble?

You can answer that question for yourself.  I think it has something to do with sin and the unsaved person's reluctance to admit guilt.

Mr. Holding violates Proverbs 13:5-6:

 5 A righteous man hates falsehood, But a wicked man acts disgustingly and shamefully.
 6 Righteousness guards the one whose way is blameless, But wickedness subverts the sinner. (Prov. 13:5-6 NAU)

Mr. Holding has been spreading lies about me since even before 2015, but it was in 2015 that he began his most concerted effort to do so.  I will send to anybody who asks the 2015 Complaint, the 2016 Complaint and the 2018 Complaint that started those three lawsuits.  These extensively document not only Mr. Holding's specific words about me, but why they were lies (i.e., libelous).

The 2016 complaint contains the most extensive documentation for my more nuanced claim that Holding is a closet homosexual and talks like a completely demented 6 year old raised by criminal gangs.

What follows is commentary on that passage from a Christian who accepts "biblical inerrancy", therefore, neither Holding nor his idiot followers can wipe them off the page as heretics (one wonders what they'd think if atheists wiped apologists off the page merely because they were apologists?):

Type: Parallel, Catchword (13:5–6). 13:5–6 These two proverbs are set in parallel on the basis of “righteous” and “wicked” in v. 5 and “righteousness” and “wickedness” in v. 6. The NIV translation of v. 5b is flat; it ought to be rendered, “But a wicked man makes a stench and causes shame.” The tie between the two cola of v. 5 is that whereas the righteous are concerned for the truth (over against malicious gossip), the wicked promote scandal. By itself v. 6 is a rather colorless proverb. In context with v. 5, however, it implies that disregard for truth and the spreading of scandal is ultimately self-destructive. Those who care about the truth, however, are preserved by their integrity.

Garrett, D. A. (2001, c1993). Vol. 14: Proverbs, 

Ecclesiastes, Song of songs (electronic ed.). 

Logos Library System;The New American Commentary

(Page 135). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

The "Word Biblical Commentary" might not be "inerrantist" in ideology, but is still conservative "evangelical" for its strong promotion of Christianity.

5–6 These verses are united by the catch words just/wicked. 5 The “word of deceit” is simply plain lies, whatever might be the particular situation. V 5a could refer either to the harm caused to a community by the wicked person, presumably through lies or even calumny, or it may be simply descriptive of his character. In any case, a high premium is placed on honest speech.

Murphy, R. E. (2002). Vol. 22: Word Biblical Commentary :

Proverbs. Word Biblical Commentary (Page 96). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

For obvious reasons, Holding does little more in life than manifest his love of spreading scandal and lies, and clearly loves controversy and spreading of salacious gossip far more than "honest speech".  It's sad that it was only due to being sued multiple times for libel that he conveniently starting "choosing" to stop being quite as rambunctious about it as he was in 2015 and before.

Read v. 5 again...the Proverbs-author thinks the opposite of the person who hates falsehood, is the person who acts disgustingly and shamefully.  That is, if what Mr. Holding said about me, which justified the lawsuits, was in fact false, his own bible would condemn him as a person who acts disgustingly and shamefully.

This is a strong reason to suppose Mr. Holding is not morally qualified to hold the office of Christian teacher, an office that his own bible cautions most people against holding, James 3:1.  Yet Holding bandies about his teaching-duties as if he isn't doing anything more solemn or grave than showing the kids where extra water balloons are being stored.

My new warning to another follower of James Patrick Holding

Hello, Mr. Holding and his attorney Mr. Livingston:  As you can tell, I'm frightened of the prospect of litigating a defamation lawsuit against Holding.  So much that I even asked the Court to stop delaying its ruling on your pending motion to dismiss.  Here's another one of my recent messages to somebody who recently betrayed their ignorance of Holding's true nature.

-------------------
At Holding's YouTube channel and in reply to one of his starstruck followers, I posted the following

I noticed your flattering words to James Patrick Holding lately.  I'd like to therefore inform you of something you apparently didn't know about.

1st Corinthians 5:9-11 requires the Christian to disassociate themselves from any so-called 'brother' who is immoral, and one example of immorality Paul cites there is "reviler".  To "revile" means to slander, or hurl abusive speech toward. 

 11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one.
 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
 13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES. (1 Cor. 5:11-13 NAU) 

Did you notice that last verse?  Yeah, apparently Paul thinks Christian 'brothers' who go around reviling others, are "wicked".  Paul there was quoting or paraphrasing from Deu 13:5; Deu 17:7, Deu 17:12; Deu 21:21; Deu 22:21, all of which require the "wicked" person to be killed.  I'm not saying Holding should be killed, I'm only informing you that under your own Christian logic, God views the 'brother' who goes around reviling others, as steeped in sin and having serious issues that attention-deficit YouTube cartoons likely aren't going to fix.

Ephesians 5:4 prohibits filthiness, silly talk, coarse jesting, and since you appear to know Holding' s history, you hardly need to be told that most of it consists of filthiness, silly talk, coarse jesting, etc.

Colossians 3:8 forbids anger, wrath, malice, slander, and more, and since you appear to know Holding's history, you hardly need to be told that most of it consists of anger, wrath, malice and slander.

Holding's obvious love of "exposing" those who criticize him would also constitute the sin of "gossip", and this would be yet another reason you'd be required, as a Christian, to disassociate yourself from him: 

 19 He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets, Therefore do not associate with a gossip. (Prov. 20:19 NAU) 

Paul includes "gossip" among the list of other sins he "fears" he will find when he visits the church in Corinth.

 20 For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish; that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances; (2 Cor. 12:20 NAU)

Gee, Holding's ministry over the last 20 years could never be fairly characterized as "strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances..." could it?

My blog reveals communications from Habermas, Blomberg and other legitimate Christian scholars who formerly publicly endorsed Holding, who did not know Holding was such a foul-mouthed  asshole.  They have withdrawn their public endorsement of him.  They also told me that they see no biblical justification, whatsoever, for today's Christian engaging in insults against their critics.   That is, not even Holding's few spiritual mentors think he correctly understands basic NT ethics.  How sad is that?

Just how much of a "reviler" is Mr. Holding?  That brings up the subject of my having sued him multiple times for libel/slander:

In 2015, I sued Mr. Holding for libel.  He escaped on a technicality, but only after paying more than $20,000 in legal fees...and only after I forced him to disclose numerous private emails and messages he engaged in with others, wherein he slandered me even more...messages which for obvious reasons he would never have disclosed unless I had forced his nose to the legal grindstone.  That is, I am reasonable to believe Holding's slanders aren't limited to what he says publicly, and its nothing but blind luck if I manage to uncover otherwise unknown instances of defamation.

In 2016, I sued him a second time for libel, again, he escaped on a technicality.  Both times he successfully avoided having to answer the charges on the merits.  That's what "escape on a technicality" means.

You might figure that even rabid pit bulls become dissuaded to continue biting after they are jack-hammered to hell and back.  Not so.  After paying $20,000 to escape the first lawsuit, and luckily escaping the second, both due to technicalities, Holding, like a mentally deranged pit bull, continued slandering me anew.

And that's not the worst part.  Holding continued slandering me despite drawing his own firm conviction in 2015 that I was "dangerously mentally unstable". 

Do you know anybody who intentionally provoke dangerously mentally ill people in the hopes that they will fly into a rage and end up in jail?  If you know Holding, then you'll unfortunately have to answer "yes".

So In 2018, I sued him for libel a third time, the court refused to dismiss the case finding that if my claims were true, they would justify jury trial for damages.  The Court expected us to begin the expensive process of exchanging discovery and evidence without ruling on Holding's pending motion to dismiss.   He was forced to hire a lawyer, the suit is not going to be dismissed, and he will end up paying probably another $20,000, at the very least, just to defend himself.   That is, Holding's obstinate nature is so extreme, he will not change his illegal ways even if they end up forcing him to give up most of his retirement nest egg.  one can only wonder how his wife, who is otherwise a good person and unrelated to this mess, feels about her own savings being wasted on lawyers because of her husbands utterly unstoppable mouth.

Try thinking that one over for a while before you donate money to his "ministry".  Perhaps you should ask Holding to setup a paypal donation link for his wife's bank account, she really doesn't want her hard earned money going to pay for stupid sins that she had nothing to do with.

It might behoove you to engage in a bit of critical thinking and research before you extol Holding's virtues too much more:  The bible does not support the stupid juvenile delinquent premise that a Christian "teacher" is qualified to be a teacher merely because they've memorized a lot of information about apologetics.  In light of the bible verses cited above, it's clear that the Christian "teacher" also needs to be walking in the light of Christ (i.e., not living in sin, such as adultery, or in this case, the sin of 'reviling' that Paul puts on equal footing with other sins that the OT required the death penalty for).  Such slanderers cannot be morally qualified for the office of teacher if they are going around committing the sin of "reviling".

Perhaps the saddest part is that Holding is so obstinate, he has never apologized for any of his slanders, including the most recent ones which justified the third lawsuit that is currently in litigation.  Which tells us that he has also never repented of those sins, likely because he is too thick-headed to realize they are indeed "sinful" acts.  Jesus said something about how, if the light that is in you is darkness, the depth of that darkness would be unfathomable.

Gee, how hard would it be to show that a Christian teacher, who refuses to repent of obvious sin, is thus disqualified from being a Christian teacher?

You can find at my blog the original 97-page Complaint that started the latest lawsuit

https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2019/01/james-patrick-holding-unconscionable.html

I will email you the Amended version if you wish.

If you take exception to my accusation that Holding is a biblically disqualified foul-mouthed idiot, I will also email to you, if you wish,  the Complaint from the 2015 lawsuit, and the Complaint from the 2016 lawsuit.  These extensively document my  claim that Holding engages in the repeated sin of filthiness, reviling, slander, libel, defamation, coarse jesting, silly talk, etc, etc, and often doing so in a manner that sounds like a demended 5-year old who has found it funny and exciting to repeatedly refer to people using disgusting sexual metaphors and defecation.

Those Complaints also document my claim that Holding is in fact a closet-homosexual.  For an introduction to such evidence, see

https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2017_05_13_archive.html

I have made numerous attempts to get other Christians to initiate the Matthew 18 process (a brother must admit their sin, and if several attempts fail, you are to view them the way 1st century Jews viewed Gentiles and tax-collectors), and nobody seems to care, despite how obvious it is that Holding loves certain sins, has no plans to repent of them and plans to continue committing them with impunity into the foreseeable future.  I have to wonder, as a skeptic, when "conservative" evangelical leaders like Licona, Blomberg, Habermas, express such apathy toward one of their own brothers engaging in persistent sin, whether this would count as a legitimate argument against Christianity.  After all, if I should become a Christian, I could become as smart as those men, maybe even as smart as Holding himself, yet I would STILL foolishly ignore certain biblical mandates that apply to modern-day Christians...perhaps proving that "getting saved" or "confessing Christ" involves no  greater degree of 'transformation' than does confessing Mormonism.

Finally, Holding  quoted the Context Group for years to help justify his stupid contention that it is biblically "good" or "moral" to slander those who criticize his beliefs, but the Context Group has disowned him three times, saying he gives Christianity a bad name, nobody should listen to him, and that he "perverts" their scholarship.

see    https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2017/05/blog-post.html

While I take something of a risk in revealing the gory details to Holding's followers, I'm hoping that instead of spreading his libels further, you will use these materials to research Holding, make the obviously correct decision to confront him about these obvious sins, and admonish him that until he repents of his reviling slanderous acts, other Christians are very reasonable to view him as the wicked immoral 'brother' whose reviling slanderous mouth requires you to disassociate yourself from him.  1st Corinthians 5:11-15, supra.

Sincerely,

Christian Doscher

barryjoneswhat@gmail.com

Answering Cerebral Faith's 4 questions, plus a whole lot more...

This is my reply to an article by Evan Minton entitled

Cerebral Faith

4 Questions Everyone Investigating The Case For Christianity Should Ask Themselves

posted by Evan Minton on July 09, 2019  

When it comes to investigating the evidences and arguments for and against worldviews, we need to realize that we human beings are not mere thinking machines; only considering the facts and logic, and generating conclusions based on hard, cold rationality. We're not perfect, and one of the effects of the fall said by theologians is said to be "The Noetic Effect", that the sin nature affects our ability to reason properly.

Maybe that explains why apostle Paul prohibited the very type of "word-wrangling" that you ceaselessly engage in:

 12 If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us;
 13 If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.
 14 Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. 15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
 16 But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, (2 Tim. 2:12-16 NAU)

That is, while you should do 'apologetics' you must still avoid "wrangling words".  See Titus 3:9-11 for an example of Paul's idea of how to convince those who are in error.  they get two chances to shut up and confess Paul's belief true. If they persist in disagreeing with Paul, you avoid them thereafter.  There is no "constantly discussing" the issue.  Like so many other apologetics blogs and websites, you appear dedicated to violated this word-wrangling prohibition with all of your might, on a rather consistent basis.

Then you increase your sin by using your word-wrangles as a means to make money, by asking people to donate money and in exchange they can have more access to your word-wrangles.

Sin doesn't completely debilitate us from reasoning. If that were the claim, it would be self-refuting in nature for we could ask "Did you use your reason to come to the conclusion that you cannot trust reason?"

Good point, so apparently you agree that Paul erred by pushing the human/pot analogy too far in Romans 9:20-22?  I have to wonder why Paul didn't absolve sinners of sin right there, since under his pressing logic, pots avoid doing lots of things, such as "sinning".

Nevertheless, we need to be aware that biases, emotional like or dislike of implications, and other things can lead us away from the truth.

So can the belief that the Holy Spirit is empowering you to believe whatever you believe.  This "holy spirit" crap is precisely what makes many fundamentalists equally as close-minded to their errors as you think atheists are.  What's sad is that you'd think by being at least "Christians", the fundamentalists would have a somewhat better track record of recognizing when they have erred.  But no.

None of us is immune, whether we are Christian or Non-Christian, and each one of us needs to do deep introspection when we're evaluating competing systems of thought.

on the contrary, you are to blindly presuppose that anything against Christ is automatically from the devil:

24 The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged,
 25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,
 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. (2 Tim. 2:24-26 NAU)

Minton continues:

In this blog post, I will mention 5 questions we need to pose to ourselves and meditate upon when it comes to evaluating whether Christianity is true or false.
 Question 1: If I Knew Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Christianity Were True, Would I Follow Christ?

Yes.  But that answer means nothing useful, since I might decide that the Christianity that is "true" is Marcion's gospel, which said the OT YHWH was a demon.  So my ability to be objective and answer your question "yes" doesn't really accomplish much in your eyes unless I get lucky enough to pick the particular set of beliefs YOU say are essential to salvation.

The first thing you need to decide is whether or not if Christianity were demonstrated to be true beyond a reasonable doubt, you'd become one of Christ's followers. If you knew God existed, would you worship Him?

No.  that would be about as dumb as a lower life form worshipping YOU merely because you are in fact, a higher life form.  Well your being a higher life form doesn't automatically imply that anything you do is morally good or realistic. 

Would you try to live the life that God wants you to live?

Not if you are talking about the god of the OT.  No, I wouldn't go around killing children even if I was convinced the bible-god was telling me to do it for the sake of his mysteriously good reasons.  I'd instead tell him to fuck off, just like I'd tell any enemy that is more powerful than I, to fuck off.

Furthermore I don't see any reason to give a fuck about obeying God, given that the arguments for literal conscious eternal torment are themselves unbiblical and contradict the type of justice the bible says God requires.  So disobeying god would only result in me dying and going out of existence, something I already believe will happen and have no fear of.

Would you give up anything in your life that He considers sin?

Jesus told his followers that giving up custody of their kids would cause material and spiritual abundance to flow into their lives (Matthew 19:29), but you are crazy if you think I'd follow that kind of advice 2,000 years after the fact.

If you hesitate or if your answer is no, then your problem is not with regards to the strength of the evidence for Christianity or lack thereof, your problem is either emotional or moral.

That's right.  Your God threatened to cause men to rape women (Isaiah 13:15-17), and like you, I consider rape to be without rational justification, so whoever causes rape is IMO best avoided or killed.

In other words, you simply don't want Christianity to be true.

If you mean I don't want to serve a god that inflicts rape and torture on children, then yes, like you, I cannot imagine myself ever giving in to the whims of such sadistic lunacy.

If Christianity were true, then you would have to repent or else face judgment.

Correction:  if the Christianity YOU believe is the right form, were true, then we'd have to repent or else face judgment.  But as far as I can tell, the Christianity of the NT contradicts the OT god's standard of justice and is not consistent about the nature of hell, so once again, I don't see the danger in telling your pedophile savior Christ to fuck off.  It apparently involves as much danger as giving the bird to the driver who cuts me off in traffic.  Let's just say I'm not exactly fearful of the wrath of an obviously fictitious god.

Rather than live life in open rebellion against God knowing that Hell awaits, they comfort themselves by talking themselves into believing that The Bible is nothing but a book a fairy tales.

But hell is contrary to the OT god's standard of justice.  So it's reasonable for me to react to the contradiction by viewing the OT as the golden standard.  Therefore eternal hell does NOT await.  Only physical death and extinction of consciousness...something I already accept without fear.

It's much easier to live your life in sin if you can convince yourself that there isn't someone who's going to hold you accountable beyond the grave.

If you intended to talk to stupid shit juvenile delinquents, then i guess you had a point.  But most of your readers aren't that depraved, so your characterizing them as living in sin is questionable at best and insulting at worst.  If you are so fanatical that you think I'm "sinning" by going to work everyday, guying groceries, paying the bills, and doing the daily routine most other Americans do, then i'm afraid your fanaticism puts you beyond any possibility of reasoning with.  You might not say its good to play with live rattlesnakes in church, but your bigotry and closed-mindedness are still as intense as it is for those fools.

If Christianity is true, then several implications follow.

But only after you've reasonably decided which denomination is true.  You aren't going to do that...not with evangelicals themselves being in so much disagreement they've been fighting each other for years over every biblical thing except perhaps Jesus' gender.

It means that if you're living in sin, you'll have to repent.

I'm not living in sin.  Sin presupposes god's existence.  God doesn't exist, for the same reason that bwickfullmers don't gofleding.  "God" is an incoherent concept.

Jesus said that if you even look at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart (Matthew 5:28), and adultery is one of the things God said not to do (Exodus 20:14).

But Jesus' refusal to insist on the death penalty for any man who lusts after a woman, indicates his disagreement with Moses.  You will say Jesus is God and can modify his law at will, but I say the prohibition on adultery is something Frank Turek would say emanates from God's morally good "nature", and therefore God can no more allow exceptions to his mandated justice, than you can choose to levitate yourself over a traffic jam.

If you like to spend your evenings downloading and looking at pornography, you'll have to get that out of your life or answer to God for it (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Or we can blame God, who, like the parent guilty of child neglect, has the power to make us do whatever he wants (Ezra 1:1, and Cyrus was a pagan idolater whose sins were therefore far worse than merely gazing at nude women), but who chooses to avoid employing that magic fairy dust. 

But porn watchers don't want to do that. Watching porn is fun! It's exciting! Porn watchers don't want to give up porn because they enjoy it too much.

If God didn't want me to watch porn, he'd use his Ezra 1:1 magic fairy dust to convince me otherwise.  If that crap works on pagan idolaters like Cyrus, well, I don't fuck animals or burn children alive, so if your god has a method of convincing that works on sinners far worse than myself, your god is a dumb fuck and therefore less likely a higher life form and more likely a fiction or lower life form.

Others may want to sleep around, bouncing from woman to woman. According to Hebrews 13:4, this is a no-no. If someone engaged in this behavior doesn't repent, they'll be facing judgment.

But the OT doesn't condemn the single guy who has sex with a non-virgin woman, and since you aren't allowed to add to the word of the Lord, (Deut. 4:12), that type of activity cannot be called sin.  See Romans 7:7 if you think you could have discovered coveting was sin without seeing it condemned in the Law.

Romans 1:26-28, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, and 1 Timothy 1:9-11 prohibit homosexual relationships. Some people don't want Christianity to be true because it means they'll have to stop having sex with their same-sex partner.

Agreed, but i'm not homosexual, so, dismissed.  But you might wish to send those verses to James Patrick Holding. He is a closet homosexual or else was before I started telling the world the evidence for it, as abundantly documented at this blog.

2 Corinthians 6:14 prohibits a believer marrying an unbeliever. Some people may not want Christianity to be true because they know that if it is, they need to become Christians or else they face Hell, and if they're Christians themselves, they'll be prohibited from marrying their boyfriend or girlfriend who is also an unbeliever.

You are assuming Christianity's truth involves apostle Paul.  I say Paul was a heretic and liar, so Paul's legalistic bullshit wouldn't really bother me.  I'd become a follower of Christ, not a follower of his dishonest followers.

For many people, it's a purely intellectual issue. Merely being presented with the evidence for Christianity, as I've done in several posts on this blog and as I've done in my books, will be sufficient to persuade them to become Christians. For others, they will talk themselves out of any argument, no matter how compelling it otherwise would be. They have to. Their autonomy is at stake.

Not according to 5 point Calvinists.  According to them, we resist the gospel because God infallibly decreed that we resist the gospel.  Then God judges us with pain and punishment for doing exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, where he wanted, how he wanted, while he was pulling our puppet strings in those directions the whole time.

This is why the Christian Apologist and Oxford mathematician John Lennox said: "If religion is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark, then atheism is a fairy tale for those afraid of the light."

Cute talking point.  Dismissed.

1 Lennox was echoing the words of Jesus; "This is the verdict; that light has come into the world, but people loved the darkness rather than the light for their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will come nowhere near the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed." (John 3:19-20).

And what would you think of an atheist who says "everyone who resists atheism is resisting correct knowledge"?  If sound bytes don't convince you, how can you expect sound bytes to convince us?

Ask yourself, am I suppressing the truth in my unrighteousness?

No, in fact you and most other apologists studiously avoid debating me despite the fact that I always argue on the merits.  Maybe you should ask yourself the same question.  You deal with me, and you start giving your readers less reasons to donate money to your word-wrangling ventures. 

Is my love of sin overriding my love for finding the truth?

No, I have extensively reviewed and meticulously falsified the dogshit put out by Habermas, Craig and Licona.

Do I love truth when it enlightens me, but hate it when it convicts me?

Maybe.  So what?  You are a sinner, your Christianity does nothing to make you more welcoming of uncomfortable truth, as evidenced by the obvious fact that you refuse to debate me.  I've said too much and debated too often for you to pretend that I'm just too ignorant.  Your motive to avoid debating me is your fear that actual truth might be different than what you've chosen to make money with.

Love of sin is not the only non-intellectual "reason" you might have for rejecting Christ. Perhaps, like Charles Darwin,3 you know that if Christianity is true, someone you loved who died as a non-believer is in Hell. If you can convince yourself there is no God and there is no Hell, you don't need to walk around with that uncomfortable thought. But, our feelings do not determine truth. How you feel about Christian doctrine is irrelevant to whether or not it's true.

But not irrelevant to whether I have rational warrant for rejecting your religion.  And yes, I've already decided that rape cannot be morally justified, so I am smart and wise to say "fuck you" to any notion of a higher life form that threatens women with rape, such as your God (Isaiah 13:15-17, Deut. 28:30).

Question 2: What Evidence Would I Expect There To Be If Christianity Is True and Is This Expectation Reasonable?
 The second question you need to ask yourself is how what kind of evidence you would expect to find if Christianity were true? What kind of evidence are you looking for that would lead you to say there is or is not any evidence?

What kind of evidence would convince you that space aliens control your thoughts from another dimension?

For me, a universe with an ex nihilo beginning that is impeccably fine-tuned to permit life to exist on both the cosmic and local levels,

The universe did not have a beginning, see 1st law of thermodynamics (matter cannot be created nor destroyed, only changed).

The Big Bang and you and Turek depend so heavily on, is considered unbiblical, unscientific, and a lie of the devil by multiple creationist Christian organizations like AiG and ICR.

Life is nothing but the natural result of the circumstances.  Gazing in wild wonder at life on earth is about as smart as gazing in wild wonder that mold grows in damp attics, or that a cup holds water.

the existence of the moral law,

Sorry, there are no objective or absolute morals.  You aren't meeting your burden by simply blurting out "thou shalt not torture babies to death solely for entertainment" and then pretending the debate is foreclosed thereby.  You are forgetting that there is a very good but purely naturalistic reason most people find baby torture immoral, and you would be forgetting that your own god tortured at least one baby for 7 days before allowing it to die (2nd Samuel 12:15-18).  All of the atrocities you think are absolutely immoral, are caused by God, including parental cannibalism and murder (Deut. 28:15-63, 32:39).

the modal possibility of the existence of a Maximally Great Being,

your worship of Anselm is truly revolting, since, like the term "god" itself, "maximally great being" is also incoherent, as "greatness" is horrifically subjective. 

and five historical facts about Jesus' death and what happened afterward and the fact that only the resurrection can account for all five of those facts is exactly what I would expect if Christianity were true.

You were already schooled by me on why those five facts do not place any intellectual compulsion on the skeptic, but you chose to let me have the final word, and you walked away from that debate.

If Christianity were false, the universe should have always existed,

Good call.  it has.

the possibility of biological life should be way more probable,

It is.  If another planet formed the way earth did, similarly near to its home star, there is no reason to think life wouldn't eventually form.

we should have no moral law written on our hearts,

We don't.  According to your bible, those morals come from a stick.  See Proverbs 22:15.

a Maximally Great Great Being should be conceptually incoherent,

it is.  What's greater, a god who can play guitar as fast as Paul Gilbert, or a god who has decided to avoid learning how to play the guitar?  Or did you forget that Paul prohibited you from word-wrangling?

and Jesus' tomb should have remained occupied with all of his disciples moving on with their lives as they did before they even met Jesus.

No, you need to surf youtube if you think religion cannot cause people to believe crazy shit upon little or no evidence.  And the evidence for the empty tomb is laughable.

But we don't live in that kind of world. 4
 However, that's just me. What kind of evidence are you looking for?

Can it be reasonable for me to arrive at that time in my life when I think I don't need to examine Mormon claims anymore, and to therefore draw a skeptical conclusion about it's ultimate nature? 

Then it can also be reasonable for me to consider that I've done enough study of the bible to justify drawing a skeptical conclusion about its ultimate nature.  You don't know where to draw that line, so you'll pardon me if I draw it for myself.

If you say "there's no evidence", you must either have not encountered the aforementioned evidence or else they don't fit your definition of evidence.

There's plenty of evidence that Jesus rose from the dead.  But it is so horrifically lacking in plausibility and authentication that it isn't worthy of credence.

Moreover, is what kind of evidence you're looking for reasonable to expect if the Christian worldview is true?

Christianity is too convoluted and contradictory to predict what kind of evidence should be showing itself if the religion were true.  What kind of evidence would you expect if "aliens control my thoughts from another dimension" were true?

Perhaps your epistemology is too restrictive. There are those who hold to a view called Scientism. This view asserts that the only truth that can be known is what can be tested by science.

That's true.  The more you push data that can be seen and heard, the more you testify, even if unwittingly to the stupidity of being open to messages from aliens living in other dimensions.

If this view is true, then supernatural entities like God, angels, demons, souls, et. al. cannot be known since they cannot be tested by science.

Sure, there might be truth out there science cannot currently detect, but if that's the case, YOU wouldn't know about it either, because you don't provide any justification to think you are some special person with special powers to peer into the unknown.

Although, I do think that science can provide evidence in a premise in a philosophical argument for God's existence (e.g The Kalam's premise that "The universe began to exist").

The universe didn't begin to exist.  Try again.

If scientism is your epistemology, then it's no wonder why you aren't convinced by philosophical arguments for God's existence or the historical evidence for Jesus' divine self-understanding and resurrection from the dead. This is because philosophy and history aren't scientific enterprises. Science is great and it has provided us with much knowledge of our world over the past several centuries. However, it is fallacious to say that science is the only path towards truth. Think about it. Can the statement "Only science can provide knowledge" subject to scientific testing?

It doesn't need to be.  There are such things as axioms, which are beyond "testing".

Can you put the claim "Only what science can establish as true is true" underneath a microscope or a super collider? No!

But science isn't limited to what can be seen through a microscope or supercollider.  you are also doing scientific testing when you compare what somebody says about themselves, with their known pattern of behavior.  It's all induction.

These are philosophical statements not subject to scientific testing. Since they cannot be verified through science, and only that which can be verified through science can be known, then the epistemology of scientism cannot be known! Scientism is self-refuting. It collapses under its own criterion.

Sounds like you love the sin of word-wrangling.

Question 3: Am I Setting Too High Of A Standard Of Proof? How much evidence is enough evidence?

You cannot know, therefore, you cannot condemn those who decide for themselves when enough is enough.

You need to reflect on whether or not you're setting the bar too high.

The Holy Spirit needs to get off his ass now that he knows his sinners cannot do his job for him.  You will say arguments can never take the place of the work of the Holy Spirit in convicting a person of sin, but pretending your arguments can never do the job of full convincing merely turns the Holy Spirit into a gratuitous afterthought.  Can you imagine a lawyer or criminal investigator making his best empirical case, then telling the jury "empirical arguments cannot convince, only the Holy Spirit can convince"?

Are you a skeptic or a hyper-skeptic? What's the difference?

Nothing but rhetoric, sort of like you christians who constantly recharacterize consistent 5 Point Calvinists as "hyper-Calvinists".  No, they are just consistent, that's all.

I'll never forget a Facebook post my friend Luke Nix made several years ago. He said, "Hyper-Skepticism is having to drink an entire carton of milk before concluding that the milk is bad and should have been thrown out after the first sip."

And regular skepticism says if the first taste of milk is sour, you are a fool to think that if you keep drinking it, the sour will go away.  Well excuse me, but I've already tasted Christianity and found it rotten.  There is no intellectual compulsion on me to continually worry that maybe it was just my taste buds that deceived me into thinking the milk was bad. You Christians cannot even figure out what types of theology-milk are bad.

The fact is that the vast majority of the conclusions we reach, even in our daily lives, are based on probability, not absolute certainty.

Correct.

I don't even have 100% certainty that I'm sitting at my desk right now typing up this blog post. It's possible that I'm just a brain in a vat of chemicals with electrodes hooked up to my brain, and there's a scientist sending stimulates into my brain to make me experience the sensation of sitting at my desk, typing up a blog post. There is a possibility that that is the case, but that possibility is so unfathomably tiny that I don't give such a scenario any serious consideration. I am 99% certain that I am not a brain in a vat, but I still can't get up to 100% certainty.

Good point.

If you can't believe with 100% certainty that you are not a brain in a vat of chemicals, yet you still give mental assent to the claim that the external world is real, why wouldn't you give mental assent to the truth claims of Christianity?

Because, as i demonstrate over and over, Christianity's best apologists fail miserably to show their supernatural hypothesis of Jesus' resurrection is better than a naturalistic hypothesis.  It doesn't really take a degree in philosophy to recognize that reasonable doubt materializes where the experts fail to make their case.

J. Warner Wallace wrote that "In legal terms, the line that must be crossed before someone can come to the conclusion that something is evidentially true is called the 'standard of proof” (the 'SOP'). The SOP varies depending on the kind of case under consideration. The most rigorous of these criteria is the 'beyond a reasonable doubt' standard that is required at criminal trials. But how do we know when we have crossed the line and are 'beyond a reasonable doubt'? The courts have considered this important issue and have provided us with a definition:
 'Reasonable doubt is defined as follows: It is not a mere possible doubt; because everything relating to human affairs is open to some possible or imaginary doubt. It is that state of the case which, after the entire comparison and consideration of all the evidence, leaves the minds of the jurors in that condition that they cannot say they feel an abiding conviction of the truth of the charge.'
 This definition is important because it recognizes the difference between reasonable and possible that we discussed earlier. There are, according to the ruling of the court, 'reasonable doubts,' 'possible doubts,' and 'imaginary doubts.' The definition acknowledges something important: every case has unanswered questions that will cause jurors to wonder. All the jurors will have doubts as they come to a decision. We will never remove every possible uncertainty; that’s why the standard is not 'beyond any doubt.' Being 'beyond a reasonable doubt' simply requires us to separate our possible and imaginary doubts from those that are reasonable."5

I'm sorry to hear that you too give in the stupid "legal apologetic".  You have to be horrifically ignorant of court rules and case law if you think the gospels would pass authentication tests demanded by modern American courts.

Question 4: I Find Theological Position X Unreasonable. Is This A Central Tenet Of Christianity or Is This Debated Within The Church? Can I Be A Christian and Still Reject X?
 Just can't bring yourself to believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years old?

No.  Neither can conservative Christian apologist and creationist Hugh Ross and many other creationists, to say nothing of the consensus of non-Christian geologists.

Don't believe a good God would causally determine people to sin?

Is causing another person to sin, objectively immoral, or do you have to first inquire as to who is doing the causing?  Why would you have to first ask who is doing the causing?  Might it be that yes, the bible claims your god causes people to sin, and that is the ONLY reason you don't immediately condemn the causing of sin?

Don't think a just God would leave people in eternal conscious torment?

No, not when he can get rid of sin by arbitrarily declaring it removed (2nd Samuel 12:13).

It's possible that these seem unreasonable because they are unreasonable. And guess what? Many Christians would agree with you. Not every position you find a Christian defending is central to the Christian worldview. Some are. You can't be a Christian and not believe that God exists, that God is one being who consists of three persons (The Doctrine Of The Trinity),

Sorry, but nowhere does the NT express or imply that confession of the Trinity is essential to salvation or to being "Christian". 

that we're sinners in need of salvation,

Jesus doesn't seem to do a whole lot of informing his Gentile followers that they need salvation.  Does god do a healing miracle for a Gentile and then just say nothing about her need to repent?

and that Jesus died on the cross and bodily rose from the dead.

Jesus obviously taught the true gospel before he died and rose from the dead, so the original gospel did not demand that people believe he died and rose from the dead.  If you think things changed since he died, that's your problem.

However, other issues are debatable, such as how to interpret Genesis 1, whether humans have free will or whether God causally determines all things, and whether or not God lets human experience eternal conscious torment or whether God annihilates the condemned from existence (a view known as Annihilationism).
 Don't reject Christianity simply because you find some secondary doctrine unreasonable. I myself find two of the three secondary issues mentioned above unreasonable. That's why I'm an Evolutionary Creationist and a Molinist rather than a Young Earth Creationist and a Calvinist.

Or maybe we can be reasonable to reject Christianity because its apologists appear eager in their effort to commit the sin or word-wrangling, and encourage their readers to do the same by pretending that the word-wrangling that goes on between Christians on the subject of evolution, creation, Molinism, Old earth creationism and Calvinism are useful and lead to the edification of the hearers.  I suggest you read 2nd Timothy 2:14, ALL of it.

My latest messages to homosexual Christian James Patrick Holding

from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkIOe0qfXnQ

Sent April 5, 2019

Barry Jones3 hours ago

Mr. Holding,

I didn't talk slanderous about you to Evan Minton, but after you posted to his blog a cut and paste of the libels for which I'm currently suing you, I convinced him in my final post to delete your slanders.  

http://cerebralfaith.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-evidence-for-jesus-resurrection_2.html

So had to delete from my blog the post I was authoring at the same time Minton was deleting your crap:

https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2019/04/cerebral-faith-plea-for-evan-minton-to.html

You shouldn't do another video on me on this account, since everything I said about you was factually and legally true.  But if you disagree, all I ask is that your video not be libelous.  Yes, I recognize, from your past history, that is probably asking too much of you.

If you cease libeling me, the jury in our current lawsuit will be told that when you really want to, you know what libel is and how to keep it out of your online screeds about me.  Therefore any other posts or videos you ever made about me, which were libelous, you posted with the INTENT to lie about me and unfairly hurt my reputation...thus justifying a much higher award of punitive damages.

If you continue libeling me in future posts/videos, the jury will be told that because you were sued twice for libel in the past, and because you hold yourself out as a smart guy, your continuing to libel me in your online screeds is not due to mistaken legal knowledge on your part, but due to an INTENT to libel me.  "Smart" assholes like you are forever foreclosed from employing the "wow I didn't know that was wrong" excuse.  When you libel me, you KNOW what you are doing...thus justifying a much higher award of punitive damages.

In other words, the only thing you could possibly do to lower the amount of damages the jury will award, is to just shut the fuck about me, completely...which would make the jury suspicious that the ONLY reason you ceased your illegal conduct was mere fear of the consequences, not because you were genuinely remorseful...thus justifying a higher award of punitive damages.

If you take down your other online posts about me, the jury will have to decide whether this indicates you came to your senses and showed true remorse for obvious wrongs, or if you are just a scared asshole criminal trying to give the false appearance of contrition, now that he knows he cannot do anything to avoid legal consequences completely.

If you don't take down any of your other posts about me, the jury will remember that you knew well enough those posts were libelous, so your refusal to take them down cannot be explained with a "wow I just didn't know they were libelous", but only explained with "I committed myself to being a smart guy, and if I fold up shop now, my babies will give up on their faith, and I'd rather engage in libel than risk having my babies view me as a real sinner in need of actually serious repentance"

And just in case you think the Court's latest ruling somehow means my current lawsuit against you is frivolous, the Court would hardly give me leave to amend the Complaint, as it obviously did, if it was "frivolous" (i.e., if the alleged facts could not possibly support any legally justified tort claim against you).  

Christianity's most belligerent cocksucker lives in the one state that has the toughest libel laws.  God works in mysterious ways. 

So you think everything is currently going great? That's what the Jews said to Jeremiah, before disaster struck.  FUCK YOU.
==============

I sent a later message too, but like the previous, Holding made it unviewable:

The Authorship of John 8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lJ6JYdrXT8

April 9, 2019

Barry Jones 1 day ago

And Mr. Holding continues, straining himself to the point of hernia, throwing dust and ashes on his head, and praying like mad that something happens, somehow, to prevent Doscher from timely filing a 1st Amended Complaint + a motion for reconsideration.