Third lawsuit against James Patrick Holding now inevitable

 See UPDATE: November 10, 2018, below:  Holding has now disabled comments to those videos where he defames me, and he has also dissolved his second corporation "Apologetics Afield".
------------------

Here is the email I recently sent to Mr. Holding, having previously experienced his "the-evidence-you-want-is-on-my-computer-which-froze-so-I-threw-it-away" bullshit excuse in the prior lawsuits. I don't post this to boast, but only because there is a possibility that he might have set a filter to send my emails directly to the trash (given that he had one of his techies configure his website so that when accessed from my ISP, the only thing that shows up on my computer screen is unreadable raw html.

We all know that Holding is well aware of this blog, so by cross-posting that email here, I make it even more difficult for him to argue in the future that he never got a message asking him to preserve evidence.  Surely one of his stupid minions will carp about this post to him, and there you go, now he's accountable.

 That's right, homosexual Holding, start a gofundme page, and like last time, don't worry about the possibility of your supporters worrying whether the charges might actually be true (i.e., that you deserve to suffer as guilty).  We know from prior experience that they will come to your rescue even if you really are guilty as charged, amen? 


-------------------begin email

request to preserve evidence, you will be sued
Barry Jones <barryjoneswhat@gmail.com>
2:58 PM (0 minutes ago)
to TektonSlam (jphold@att.net)

Mr. Holding,

This is ----------, the man who sued you twice in the past for libel.

I am going to be suing you in the near future for libelous comments you posted about me to others through the internet between 2017 and the present. ---- v. Apologetics Afield, Inc, Florida Middle District. (i.e., the named Defendant will not be you but your non-profit organization, so under binding case law, you cannot represent yourself pro se, you either hire a lawyer, or you don't participate in the litigation).

And since your libels of me were intentional and false, I'm quite certain your libel-insurance contract has a disclaimer clause that says where your libels were intentional as opposed to being merely mistaken, the insurance carrier will not pay your legal expenses. Those thousands in lawyer fees will come straight out of your own pocket (excuse me, sorry, out of the pockets of people who are not guilty of any wrongdoing beyond being stupid enough to pay unnecessary bills you create with your libelous mouth). But we already know that your salivating customers don't really give a fuck whether the libel charges are true, or whether you are actually guilty, they just come running to your rescue by knee-jerk reflex, thinking rescue is always best, and like the stupid juvenile delinquents they are, never dream for one second that actually letting you suffer the consequences of your own illegal actions is also one of the ways the bible god works.

You are requested to preserve any and all communications you've had with third parties wherein I was a subject of discussion whether in whole or in part, regardless of whether i was designated therein directly, indirectly by my real name, internet name or any pseudonym made up by them, myself, you, or anybody else.

You are also requested to preserve the original form of any file you ever sent to anybody since 2016, or file that you didn't actually send to anybody since 2016, wherein I was the subject of the discussion whether in whole or in part, including but not limited to the files you promised to send others allegedly documenting evidence you think shows that am dishonest, or evidence that others have accused me of any type of dishonest conduct, including but not limited to the "free ebook" you promised to your paying customers at timecode 2:52 in the video you posted to YouTube located at the following address:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaTC2fR2roo

here's a screenshot in case God allows Satan to mess up the address so as to give you a plausible reason to accidentally "lose" that evidence:

You are also requested to preserve any physical drives/computers/devices that you used to communicate about me with others, or which you used to facilitate communications about me with others. Normally I wouldn't make this request, but then you have a history in court of conveniently losing evidence, including entire computers, when you are afraid your illegal bullshit is going to be publicly exposed, so it only makes sense to talk in lawyer-speak to make sure your stupid conniving cocksucking ass doesn't lie his way out of the truth for a third time. FUCK YOU.

By the way, I'm no longer mystified as to why Christian Research Institute ignored my prior emails to them exposing your biblical disqualification to hold any type of teaching office whatsoever. Hank's tendency to favor such hypocritical Christian miscreants became publicly exposed years ago in the scandal involving Paul Young,

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/soc.religion.christian/pdr5Iwdb6A4/1yH0e3VyjAMJ

https://everyman2.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/former-cri-employee-attacks-my-book/

....and many former CRI employees including CRI's former senior researcher Robert Bowman, Jr. continue to presently opine that Hank had a temper and other problems resolving conflicts and was thus disqualified biblically to be any kind of leader for a Christian organization like CRI, and that he was a nasty mean son of a bitch to anybody who disagreed with anything he had to say...exactly like you.

On the contrary, it now makes perfect sense why a nasty mean son of a bitch would get rid of good Christian people and want another nasty mean son of a bitch to write articles for him. Apparently I had given Hank more moral credit than he deserved. When you write articles for CRI, you are right at home.

Nothing could give greater justification for skeptics to construe Christian apologetics as inherently deceitful, than Hanks' having vigorously argued with other apologists for the truth of traditional protestant evangelicalism for more than 20 years...only to find out several months ago that actually, Eastern Orthodoxy is the right form of Christianity.

If you can keep missing the Christian truth despite taking 20 years to study and defend one version of it with the best apologists Christianity has to offer, as Hank thinks he did for the last 20 years and more, sounds to me like the whole business of trying to decide which ancient religion was the right one is riddled with fatal ambiguities and falsities and is thus a ridiculous exercise in futility.

Which thus means any apologetics ministry, including yours, is every bit the dogshit enterprise I've been calling it for years.

You will learn to control your libelous mouth, or your customers can look forward to their hard earned money being allocated over from helping you purchase your triple cheeseburger midnight snacks in the name of Jesus, to paying modern pharisees thousands of dollars to help you come up with ways to avoid having to answer charges on the merits, when actually just being forthrightly honest about the facts is typically cheaper. FUCK YOU.

If you like it when I make huge dents in your credibility and your "ministry", just keep telling yourself that Acts 5:29 trumps modern America's prohibitions on libel. Maybe god has a greater purpose in forcing you to take Christian money and infuse it into lawyerland, where they care about the truth of Jesus about as much as they care about overcharging wealthy clients. FUCK YOU.

Sincerely,
--------------(end of email)

 Question for Holding's paying customers:

Which biblical character is more likely to encourage and support the efforts of lawyers who try to think up ways to enable their clients to avoid having to answer accusations of immorality on the merits?

Jesus, or the devil?

Provide the biblical evidence you believe supports your answer.  

UPDATE: November 10, 2018
 Here's the email I recently sent to James Patrick Holding.  He has disabled the comments to his YouTube videos, including those defamatory videos about me where he greedily promised his viewers a free ebook allegedly documenting negative opinions about me from other people, and he has now formally dissolved his second corporation "Apologetics Afield":

---------beginquote

 On Sat, Nov 10, 2018 at 12:52 PM Barry Jones <barryjoneswhat@gmail.com> wrote:

     Mr. Holding,    

    This is Christian Doscher.  My third lawsuit against Apologetics Afield ('AA') is going forward, you should be getting it from a federal marshal around X-mas.    

    I've noticed today that you disabled all comments for your videos at https://www.youtube.com/user/tektontv/videos, including the videos where you libeled me or were responding to something I did or said.

    For all videos you've ever posted to YouTube between 2013 and the present,  in which you were directly or indirectly responding to anything I've ever said or done, preserve all comments that anybody ever posted to such videos.  I also sent you an email many months ago asking you to preserve any such evidence, and you've clearly known for the last year about my own blog threatening such third lawsuit, at https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2018/03/third-lawsuit-against-james-patrick.html    

    I also commented many months ago at one of your videos with a similar request that you preserve all such evidence.    

    If you claim that you "lost" all those comments after you disabled the commentary-option, then your failure to backup those comments first, will be argued in court to be spoiliation of evidence.  You are advised to request from YouTube or Google all such comments if you conveniently "lost" them.    

    If you kept a backup copy of those comments, then good for you, as they will be needed at trial.    

    This email is simply a continuing reminder and request that you continue to preserve ANY and ALL of your verbal and written words wherein you directly or indirectly mention me, any of my online aliases, or anything I've ever done, or anything you suppose I've ever said, written or done.

    This request refers to any and all of your communications to or from any third parties, between July 2014 and July 2019, wherein I was at least one of the subjects of discussion, whether directly or indirectly.  The request to preserve evidence is not limited to just comments on YouTube videos.    

    I also noticed that you've now closed down AA:    

    "As some of you are aware, I formally closed down Tekton as a 501(c)(3) organization in 2016;  I have now also closed down Apologetics Afield the same way."    

    Perhaps this is a misinterpretation on my part, but your disabling comments to your YouTube videos, as well as your having voluntarily dissolved your two corporations, tells me that you are genuinely frightened of being sued again...so I'd like to offer you a chance to avoid this third lawsuit.

    The condition of settlement would be $5,000 to me (a tiny fraction of what I'll be suing you for), along with your posting an article to tektonics.org, theologyweb.com, deeperwatersapologetics.com, and equip.org, specifying that

    a) fear that your "internet predator alert" on me was genuinely libelous was at least one of the motives you had in removing it from your website.

    b) while not all of your false accusations against me were intentional, some of them were.

    c) you apologize for having libeled me, and you agree that some of your negative speech about me in the past constituted the "slander" that is the sin prohibited in Ps. 15:3,     31:13, 50:20, Prov. 10:18, 30:10, Isa. 32:7, Mk. 7:22, Eph. 4:31, Col. 3:8 and 1 Pet. 2:1, 12.

    d) you agree not to libel, defame or slander me ever again in the future.  You further agree to never libel, slander or defame anybody else every again as well.

    e) you agree with me that Christians who engage in the level of slander that you have committed in the past, clearly fail the qualification-criteria for teachers found in 1st Timothy 3 and 2nd Timothy 2:24-26.

    f) you agree with me that honest Christians who are sued in modern America, would not attempt to avoid answering the charges on the merits, but would answer fully and honestly any and all questions relevant to the charges against them.

    g) you got excitement and thrill out of slandering me on the internet, and you now recognize that this was due to your predisposition to act like a juvenile delinquent when facing criticism. 

    ....and other conditions I'll be adding.

    The settlement would not be legally valid until I formally approve of the wording of the above-described article.  If you think $5,000 makes more sense than paying $175,000, I'll be sending you the draft.

    And that article would be required to be permanent.  You agree to maintain tektonics.org as an active website, and to host said article there consistently,  for at least the next 15 years, and further agree to consistently maintain the above-described settlement draft.

    If you don't wish to settle, then start looking for an attorney.  Once again, I'm not suing you personally, I'm suing "Apologetics Afield".

    And once again, because your most recent libels of me (at least the ones I was able to find) were CLEARLY false, CLEARLY intentionally libelous and CLEARLY charging me with infamous crimes (i.e., libel per se), I have good reason to suppose that whatever libel-insurance carrier you have, if any, will be invoking the clause in their contract with you saying that they are not obligated to cover your legal fees if they decide that the libels you are charged with, were intentionally false or were committed with reckless indifference to the truth.  And as you know, your home-state, Florida, allows significant punitive damages even upon a jury finding of actual damages being minimal:

    "The singular protection afforded by Florida law to personal reputation in actions for defamations per se is

    further seen by the fact that punitive damages may be the primary relief in a cause of action for defamation per se."

    Lawnwood Med. Ctr., Inc. v. Sadow, 43 So. 3d 710, 727 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010)

     The better part of wisdom probably tells your insurance company that juries don't like asshole Christian apologists who get a juvenile-delinquent type of thrill out of libeling mentally disabled people.  I'm not mentally disabled, of course,  but the point is, YOU THOUGHT I WAS AT THE TIME YOU COMMITTED THE LIBELS.

    I have been able to obtain funding to actually fly to Florida to conduct a videotaped deposition of you with court reporter present, all at my expense.  I have my own reasons for not wishing to pursue this litigation.

    I also suggest that you have some heart to heart talks with Habermas and Licona; they have more credibility in Christian apologetics than you, they are legitimately credentialed Christian scholars who ceaselessly push the apologetics bit, yet they strongly disagree with your theory that talking shit to your critics is good, moral and biblical.

    So, are you ever going to admit you've ever done anything immoral or unbiblical regarding me since 2007?  Or does your genetic code prevent you from expressing remorse?

    Happy Holidays.

    Sincerely,

    Christian Doscher

-------endquote

 For those of you who are wondering, yes, rebuking Holding for his prior sins IS my idea of making a settlement offer sound more attractive.  I won't exactly be pissing myself with disappointment if Holding feels offended and declines the offer.  I can't really say at this point what I desire more, vindication by settlement or vindication in court.

 For the download link to the lawsuit I previously filed against Holding in a Florida federal court, see here.

 Since Holding likely banned my email address, I made a further effort to notify him of this request to preserve evidence, by posting to https://www.youtube.com/user/tektontv/discussion as follows:
---beginquote

Mr. Holding,

This is Christian Doscher, I sent you an email requesting that you preserve evidence for the third lawsuit, the complaint for which you'll receive around Christmas.

If you didn't get that email, I posted it at my blog:
https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2018/03/third-lawsuit-against-james-patrick.html

The email in question is at the last part of that article.

I would like to think that your disabling comments on your YouTube videos and your administrative dissolution of Apologetics Afield Corporation implies that you are starting to feel genuine remorse for your mostly libelous behavior toward me in the past.

Please confirm whether my impression is true or false. If false, get ready for legal war. And yes, I'll be flying to Florida to take a full videotaped deposition of you with court reporter present, at my expense, should you decline my settlement offer.

 ------endquote

Cold Case Christianity: Wallace fails trying to resurrect Turek's moral argument

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

Why the University of Miami’s Chair for Atheism Confirms the Existence of God

Posted: 19 Mar 2018 01:02 AM PDT

Two years ago, the University of Miami established the Appignani Foundation Chair for the Study of Atheism, Humanism, and Secular Ethics. It is the first of its kind, filled this year by a former “professor of metaphysics and the philosophy of science at the University of Notre Dame.” Louis J. Appignani funded the position with a 2.2-million-dollar endowment, hoping to “legitimize the word ‘atheism’” in the public sphere by creating a foundation whose “founding principle asserts that the planet will only survive if ‘non-acceptance promoted by faith-based ideology’ is replaced by ‘rational scientific reasoning.’” The creation of this foundation, however, only confirms the existence of the God it seeks to replace.
In the original New York Times article, Appignani (himself a committed atheist) said, “I’m trying to eliminate discrimination against atheists, so this is a step in that direction…” In a recent interview with  The Atlantic he argued that “atheists are one of the few minority groups in the country to still be widely ostracized by society. While other marginalized populations, such as women and LGBT people… are active in American politics, that’s still not the case for atheists.” In essence, Appignani believes that atheists are being treated unfairly, and he funded the foundation in an effort to correct this morally inappropriate, discriminatory behavior.
As a theist (someone who believes in God), I can’t help but wonder what Appignani means by unfair or immoral in the first place. If atheism is true, after all, moral truths are simply subjective.

Morals being mere opinions, doesn't mean they don't exist.  The time you require your kids to go to bed on a school night is completely subjective, but nobody would saw your kids could therefore legitimately object to your parental authority in this on such grounds.   

In other words, they emerge from the beliefs of individuals, or groups of individuals (like communities or nations). Who decides if a behavior is right or wrong? Individuals or communities decide under atheism, because this worldview denies the existence of any transcendent moral judge, like God. But if individuals determine what is right or wrong, how are we to decide what is morally true when two individuals (or two groups of individuals) disagree?

There is no such thing as moral "truth", as morals are mere value judgments, and you might as well say that a grandmother hosting a garage sale is "wrong" to value a used lamp at $5.   There is no objective basis upon which to assign such value, which is precisely why people at garage sales often haggle.  There's no way to "prove" that the seller is asking too much or that the buyer is offering too little.

While it might be tempting for Appignani to appeal to “rational scientific reasoning,” history demonstrates that individuals can disagree, even on scientific grounds, and moral truths are entirely philosophical, rather than scientific.

And since Christianity is itself divided on exactly those subjects too, it has no more claim to be guided by a God who has the alleged answers to those problems, than secular society does.

If, as atheism must admit, moral truths come from people groups, the majority consensus is all that we can appeal to for direction.

And you cannot demonstrate any higher basis for morality than this, either. That's precisely why cultures and nations change through the years.  There is no objective basis for morality

Regardless, you are a fool to say majority consensus is all we have to appeal to.  Many moral changes can take place, being initiated by the minority and their grass roots efforts.  The U.S. Supreme Court's gay decision in Obergfell v. Hodges was prime case of the minority view eventually replacing a majority view.

As far as moral "guidance", we are guided by our childhood conditioning, the chemicals in our brains and bodies, our fear of jail or consequences, and our instinct, which causes us to agree or disagree with the majority on occasion.

But, when it comes to the way atheists are treated in America, Appignani appears to disagree with the majority consensus.

 There is nothing about atheism that says majority consensus is the only legitimate guide to morality.

He is correct in observing that most Americans are suspicious and distrusting of atheists. A 2016 Pew Research Center Poll revealed that more than half of us would be less likely to support an atheist for President, for example. Another recent study even revealed that atheists are suspicious of atheists.

And Christians are suspicious of other Christians, as testified to most abundantly by the likes of Christian Research Institute and 2,000 years of internal disagreement and finger-pointing.  So?

And here-in-lies the dilemma for Appignani if atheism is true.
If most of us agree that distrust and suspicion of atheists is morally acceptable and fair (and this appears to be the case in America), on what grounds can an atheist object?

We call it "fuck the majority, in this matter we find our own intuition better than the majority view."

To whom (or what) can the atheist appeal?

To arguments that the majority view is worse for society than the atheist perspective.

And you Christians fare no better.  Despite your alleged access to God to resolve moral dilemmas, you have experienced denominational splits on moral and not just theological issues, for 2,000 years.  Apparently, adding a "thus saith the Lord" to whatever moral position you take, doesn't actually solve the problem of the two people disagreeing with each other.

The majority has already made its moral proclamation on the matter, and for every reasoned argument related to “survival of the fittest” (or any other atheistic standard), his or her counterpart could make an equally reasoned counter-argument. To whom or what then could the atheist even appeal for a decision about the rational, reasonability of the arguments?

By analysis of the presuppositions behind those arguments.  Furthermore, you use of polls is just stupid, as atheists come in all moral and ethical flavors, just like Christians.  If the majority of people think Christians are more trustworthy, they are sorely mistaken. 

In both situations, humans would be the final moral and rational arbiters, and if history has taught us anything, it’s demonstrated that humans can find a way to twist their moral reasoning to suit their own nefarious purposes.

Aren't Christians guilty of the same?  You consistently fail to tip the balance in favor of Christianity, Wallace.

Theism offers a better alternative. If God exists, moral truth is grounded not in the minds or opinions of humans, but in the nature of God.

But with so many Christians disagreeing about the nature of God (Calvinists seriously think God infallibly predestined all child rapists to perform they rapes they did, and because of the decree's infallibility, there was no possibility that the rapist could avoid it or choose to act differently), apparently adding "thus saith the Lord" to whatever moral position you take, doesn't fix the problem.  

Christians would hardly be as divided on gun control, birth control, abortion, death penalty, military service, etc, if God existed or was interested in providing them the "right" answer to these moral issues.

And if we assume the bible is the basis for morality, have fun showing from the bible that a 25 year old man, living in a country where adult-child marriages are legal, is morally wrong to marry and have sex with his 8 year old child-bride. God was apparently more worried about homosexuality and bestiality than he was about pedophilia.  Romans 7:7, if it's not mentioned in the Mosaic Law, you cannot show that it is a sin. So why do you believe sex within adult-child marriages would have been a sin in the eyes of the Hebrews living in the days of Moses, Wallace?  

Moral righteousness is a reflection of His Divine nature,

Not if the Christian debate on killing children in OT days has anything to say about it.  Google Lydia McGrew and Matthew Flannagan.  What, does God have a schizophrenic divine nature?  How could Christian scholars disagree about God's morals, if the issue was as capable of definitive resolution as you imply?

and humans can appeal to this nature to decide between right and wrong

 and doing that resulted in little more than a Christianity that become more and more internally splinterred over the last 2,000 years.

Moral reformers like Martin Luther King Jr. (himself a Baptist minister) understood this. He began a movement as an individual who held a minority moral view; he would have been powerless to effect change if moral truths were determined by the majority.

Well you were wrong, most mature adults do not feel constrained to act a certain way merely because the majority happens to see it that way.  Martin Luther could have accomplished his moral reform even if he never mentioned god.  God was added because he was addressing a nation that was predominantly Christian, but the basis for equality of the races is the U.S Constitution, not "god" or "bible".

King, instead, successfully appealed to a transcendent moral standard to make his case.

he reminded a racist America that their own bible said all men are made in the image of God.

That doesn't constitute going to "god" for guidance, that only constitutes appealing to the popular authority for argument.  You can often prove a currently popular mormon belief wrong by appeal to how the original book of Mormon read, or how original Mormonism viewed something...but that is hardly an appeal to "god", except in the eyes if the Mormon.

If Martin Luther King Jr.’s example, as a believer, is invalid to someone like Appignani, he might consider the words of a fellow atheist, C. S. Lewis, who, before becoming a believer, argued against the existence of God based on the injustice he observed in the world. He eventually realized his definition of injustice only confirmed God’s existence:

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust?

Easy, people naturally feel anything that inhibits them from doing what they want to do is "unjust".

A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.

Correct, and we all have "some idea" of what actions are morally good/bad.  That hardly implies 'god'.

What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

You were comparing it to your own desires.  Whatever gets in your way, you feel is immoral.

…Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too—for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies.” (from Mere Christianity)

But 'really' unjust only goes back to one's personal feeling.  i feel that rape is unjust because the women is being harmed.  I suppose if I had been raised to believe women were of inferior status and their experiencing harm was less important than when a man feels harmed, I might have a different view.  

I hope the new Appignani Foundation Chair for the Study of Atheism, Humanism, and Secular Ethics will begin its study by examining the basis for that thing at the end of its title: “ethics.” They just may find that moral and ethical principles are more than a matter of personal or cultural opinion.

They already know that.  Unfortunately, dishonest Christian apologists often capitalize upon an unbelievers choice to speak in a normal unguarded way.  If I say that rape is immoral, I'm NOT appealing to a standard any higher than the standard I was raised with and the standard of the society in which I live.  And indeed, the world shows us that your mind can be conditioned to believe that actions most Americans view as immoral, are good.  We would not expect the mind to be that malleable if there were some other-dimensional invisible friend planting his absolute values in our hearts.  you cannot blame that on "sin", since in the bible, God instructs his own followers to do things you think are immoral, such as burning teenage prostitutes to death (Leviticus 21:9).  Nothing could be more obvious than that the barbaric morality of the OT reflects absolutely nothing but the minds of the ancient brutes who wrote it.

Transcendent moral truths confirm the existence of a transcendent moral truth giver.

That follows logically, unfortunately, there are no transcendent moral truths.   A grown man having sexual intercourse with a 4 year old girl is not wrong for transcendent reasons, its wrong because of purely naturalistic and subjective reasons; the child needs to grow up to realize the purpose of being conceived and born, and this is threatened if she is raped, and even brute animals instinctively retaliate when their young are treated in a way that threatens their lives (i.e., you don't need to be made in the image of god to recognize that some act is immoral), and the pain caused to the girl is a universal sign that something is contrary to the normal order, that's why we have a sense of pain (which is admittedly not perfect, since not all pain is bad, pain from a workout hurts, but builds up muscle). 

You cannot analyze that situation apart from the sense of conditioned morality you already have.  And you don't have jack shit in the bible to show that sex within adult-child marriages is immoral or sinful, and you sure as hell have no interest in having a scholarly discussion about those few passages that you think proscribe it.

If Appignani’s foundation truly seeks to correct a transcendent injustice such as discrimination, it will first have to admit the existence of a transcendent, just God.

 Nah, we get rid of the transcendent by pointing out that a) our motive to call some act immoral arises from purely naturalistic desires, and b) all talk about any "non-physical" intelligence "transcending" the human level is, as David Hume said, nothing but sophistry and illusion.  Your God is nothing but sophistry and illusion.

Cold Case Christianity: Why do most people believe in miracles? Because they lack critical thinking skills and prefer what feels good to what's most likely

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

Why Almost Everyone Believes in the Miraculous

Posted: 16 Mar 2018 01:00 AM PDT

As an atheist, I considered myself a committed philosophical naturalist, and I rejected supernatural explanations related to scientific or historical inquiry. If I encountered an ancient account describing a supernatural event, I immediately rejected it as “history” and assigned it to the category of “mythology.”

You still do that as a Christian, at least with respect to ancient stories that aren't in the bible.  When you say you are open to the possibility that ancient pagan accounts of miracles are describing something miraculous, you don't do so because you find the account historically compelling, but solely to avoid the criticism that you only believe biblical accounts of miracles.  Telling me that you think miracles happen in ancient pagan religions, but that these were accomplished by use of black arts and demons, merely shows your willful ignorance.  You have no compelling evidence that demons exist, just like you have no compelling evidence that miracles ever happen.  The only reason you don't openly discount all ancient pagan miracle claims is because you know you will be hit with the "you-only-believe-ancient-accounts-of-miracles-when-they-appear-in-the-bible" criticism. Other than that, you couldn't give a fuck less about Caesar's ghost rising to heaven from the funeral pyre, or about a cow giving birth to a lamb as Josephus asserted.

Unfortunately, the fact that you haven't spent near as much time investigating the ancient pagan miracle claims as you have spent investigating Christianity, prevents you from completely covering up your obvious bias against anything that it outside the bible.Your present commitments to Christ as a "bible-believing" Christian would also naturally require that you spend little to no time "investigating" ancient pagan miracle claims and devote most of your time to promoting your own religion.

True history, after all, cannot involve supernatural fictions. As with most atheists, miracles were not part of my worldview, even though many of my Christian co-workers seemed quite comfortable with them.

Did you also, during your atheism, deny the miracle-healings alleged by televangelists and others?

Now, many years later, I’ve come to realize I also believed in miracles, even when I was a philosophical naturalist. Dictionary.com provides the following definition of a “miracle”:

1. An effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.

Given this definition, nearly everyone believes in one kind of miracle or another, including those who reject the existence of a supernatural God.

Then you were an incredibly stupid atheist. No wonder you write incredibly stupid apologetics books and obsessively mistake promotion of yourself as promotion of Jesus.

Even as an atheist, I accepted the reasonable reality of at least one supernatural event. The Standard Cosmological Model (SCM) of naturalism is still the “Big Bang Theory,” a hypothesis that proposes that all space, time, and matter (the attributes of the natural universe) had a beginning (at a point of “cosmological singularity”).

I was right, you were an incredibly stupid atheist, given how many scientific and metaphysical problems there are in standard big bang cosmology, and which could have been found through reasonable study even back before the 90's.

I accepted the SCM wholeheartedly as an atheist, even though the model presented a problem for my naturalistic worldview. If the SCM is true, we are living in a caused universe (whatever begins to exist must be caused; the universe began to exist; therefore, the universe must be caused).

No, your appeal to the kalam cosmological argument is unavailing.  The only reason "whatever begins to exist must be caused" sounds reasonable, is because we often say something "came into existence" when in reality it was just a new reconfiguration of previously existing atoms.

If by "whatever begins to exist must be caused", you mean "any new configuration of preexisting atoms must be caused", there is no problem, we see that happening all day every day.  The metal that makes up a car once existed only as ore in the earth.  Of course that metal ore taking the new shape of the car, or the car "coming into existence" had to be "caused".

But...if by "whatever begins to exist must be caused", you mean there are some things that were formed from new atomic substructures that didn't previously exist in any way, shape or form, then you have no evidence that this particular type of "creation" has ever occurred, which means that first premise of your Kalam argument is bullshit, which means your Kalam argument, built upon bullshit premises as it is, fails.

Which means you don't have an argument that anything was ever created by new unprecedented matter, and that means you kiss goodbye your "Creation Ex Nihilo" interpretation of Genesis 1:1.

Which means you fail to overcome the implications of the 1st law of thermodynamics, namely, matter and energy have always existed, the only "begin to exist" that ever happens is when preexisting materials are reconfigured to make a different form. Sure, that book on your coffee table "didn't exist" 15 years ago, but the paper it is made out of did, in the form of a tree or other preexisting object.

You have ZERO evidence that any such thing as brand new creation or creation "ex nihilo" has ever occurred.

The cause of this universe, however, could not have been spatial, temporal, or material (because these attributes of the natural realm came into existence as a result of the cause).

There is no compelling evidence that the universe was created or once didn't exist.  Quite the contrary, the Hubble Deep Field shows exactly what we'd expect if space were infinite...as far as our best telescopes can peer into space, there appear little more than an endless field of stars, galaxies and supervoids.  There is literally no end to it.  You might have to deprogram yourself of some prior bad thinking habits before you can appreciate that the limitations normally applicable to earthly things we ponder about, would not apply to the entire cosmos.

As Thomas Aquinas first argued, something cannot cause itself to come into existence because it would have to exist before it could bring itself into being, and this is clearly absurd.

Sure, but since you have no evidence that your specific type of "come into existence" has ever occurred in the first place, Aquinas' trifle doesn't benefit you here.

So, even as an atheist, I believed there was a non-spatial, a-temporal, immaterial first cause of the universe.

I was right, you were an incredibly stupid atheist.

Let’s return to our definitions for a moment to examine the meaning of “supernatural”:

1. Of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.

Our non-spatial, a-temporal, immaterial first cause clearly fits within this definition of “supernatural,” doesn’t it?

If you give credence to things supported by zero evidence, then yes.

The cause of the universe is, by definition, “above or beyond what is natural” in that it does not possess the attributes of the natural realm (it is not spatial, temporal, or material) and cannot be explained “by natural law.”

One atheist argument is the argument from the incoherence of religious language. You people are always talking about what is "above or beyond what is natural", when in fact anything that exists thus qualifies to be called "natural". God is no less natural than trees, IF she exists.  Therefore, the whole "natural/supernatural" debate is a classic case of deceptive semantics.  That dichotomy doesn't actually exist, it was invented so as to keep God separate from the "world" and to be thus more "biblical", but from a purely metaphysical perspective, there's no more reason to say God is "above" nature than there is to say that fish are. And certain biblical passages, by crediting God as the basis for all material things, tends to support a pantheism you don't believe it, even if the biblical authors themselves fallaciously refused to go what their own logic led.

As it turns out, the most spectacular and impressive miracle recorded in the Bible is actually found in the opening line of Genesis Chapter 1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

It's a wonderful story, I'll grant you that.  But we also grant a floating sleighs when speaking to children and people who need to grow the fuck up.  Then again, if you can find a bunch of people to oooo and ahhh at you because they also believe the fairy tale, then by all means, engage in the herd-mentality that macro evolution conditioned you to engage in.  You survive better when you believe your social support structure approves of you.  It's how the Mormonism grew by leaps and bounds in the last 150 years, despite the fact that their Book of Mormon is an obvious fraud.

Christians believe the beginning of the universe to be a supernatural miracle. Atheists agree.

Go fuck yourself, count me out.  I am an atheist who denies the traditional big bang model, and by crediting the evidence that the universe is infinite in size and extent, there is no "beginning" to it that needs to be trifled about. And you apparently are still blissfully unaware of the many atheists who cite to the traditional Big Bang model as evidence against God.

You also say nothing about the obvious discord there is between a primal cosmic explosion, and the purposeful divine artistry that the Genesis 1 author ascribes to God.  the originally intended and mostly illiterate readers or hearers of Genesis 1 would never have construed that account of creation to have involved some gigantic explosion and millions of years of time. Yet, how the text was likely understood by its originally intended audience is a normative rule of hermeneutics.  You need to worry more about what Genesis 1 is teaching, and less about how to "reconcile" what it says with modern cosmology.

As a skeptic investigating the claims of Christianity, I eventually had to admit I also accepted at least one supernatural, miraculous event, and if I was willing to accept there might be a force capable of accomplishing something this remarkable, the lesser miracles described in the New Testament seemed much less implausible.

I was right, you were an incredibly stupid atheist, given that academic and scientific opposition to the traditional Big Bang model existed even back in the days when you were an atheist. Apparently, something other than concern to investigate thoroughly was driving you toward Christianity.

As an atheist, my “reasonable” account of the history of the universe included a miraculous event. How could I then reject the Christian accounts of the Jesus’ life and ministry just because they also included miraculous events?

Easy; because the gospel stories contain obvious embellishments from pre-Christian pagan religious concepts, like virgin birth, going to the underworld, coming back to life, etc, etc.  

Gee, Wallace, if the "miracle" of the creation of the universe stopped you from classifying the gospel stories as fiction, did it also stop you from classifying other non-biblical ancient miracle stories as fiction?

Did you do as much research into Herodotus' miracle claims as you did into biblical claims?

Or did you predict that your results from researching ancient pagan authors probably wouldn't sell very well?

To be consistent, all of us (theists and atheists included) need to suspend our presuppositional biases against the supernatural to assess the claims of Christianity fairly.

That's right, if somebody comes to us saying they can prove that the things that went bump in the night in the Amityville Horror House were actually demons, we should forget all the evidence indicating the story was total bullshit and allow this ignoramus to make their case first.  FUCK YOU.

Do you suspend your Christian beliefs when an atheist gives you an argument you haven't heard before?

If so, you aren't being very biblical, the bible's comments on investigating things NEVER express or imply that you should be open to Christianity being false.

If you don't suspend your Christian presuppositions when listening to atheist arguments you haven't heard before, you are a hypocrite to expect atheists to suspend their atheist presuppositions when dealing with a Christian argument they haven't heard before, for then you expect your adversaries to be more objective than you expect yourself to be.

The truly biblical Christian doesn't say "I'll go wherever the evidence leads."

The truly biblical Christian will instead bring every thought captive to Christ:

 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh,
 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
 5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, (2 Cor. 10:3-5 NAU)

 The truly biblical Christian dons a tinfoil hat and talks to himself like we talk to children:

 8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Pet. 5:8 NAU)

You Christians have thus adopted a view that inhibits you from being as objective as you could be.

Contrariwise, atheists have no creed or magical book requiring them to take every thought captive to naturalism, or that some invisible enemy is responsible for causing them to doubt their atheism.  FUCK YOU.

Cold Case Christianity: Mark's textual variation from the other 3 gospels destroys Christianity

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

How Can the Bible Be Inerrant If It Contains Variants? (Cold Case Christianity Broadcast #106)

Posted: 15 Mar 2018 01:45 AM PDT

In this episode of the Cold-Case Christianity Broadcast, J. Warner answers listener email about the existence of variants in the earliest manuscripts we have for the New Testament. Does the fact that ancient copies of the Gospels don’t agree entirely mean that we can’t trust them?

 Yes.  The consensus of Christian scholars is that Mark intended to end his gospel at 16:8.

The consensus of Christian scholars is that Mark is the earliest published of the 4 canonical gospels.

If we  put these two facts together (i.e., the earliest gospel said nothing about a resurrected Jesus being seen by anybody) then we are reasonable to conclude that the correct form of the gospel (the earlier version of the story is usually closer to the truth, its the retellings years later that usually contain all the add-ons and embellishments) does not assert the existence of any person actually physically witnessing a resurrected Jesus. 

Wallace might be talking about textual variants in the existing ancient manuscripts of the NT, but Mark's resurrection story, being textually shorter and less embellished than those of Matthew, Luke and John, provides the unbeliever with rational warrant for saying the eyewitness testimony to Jesus rising from the dead, is limited to later embellished gospels, not the original, and that of course makes legitimate the question of whether the whole "resurrection eyewitness testimony" stuff is pure fiction.  If it was original, why does it only appear in the later versions of the gospel?

If Mark believed the resurrected Jesus made all the appearances to the disciples that we know from the endings of Matthew and Luke and John, would Mark have "chosen to exclude" such stories?  Obviously not, especially if we assume he agreed with apostle Paul and all other Christian "apologists" that Jesus' resurrection from the dead is the main pillar upon which Christianity rests.

How does this impact our notion of Biblical inerrancy?

Jesus and Paul told you everything you need to know to be true and spiritually growing Christian.

Not once did they ever express or imply, by word or their own actions, that Christians should go around trying to convince the world that there are no errors in the scriptures.  In the days of Jesus and Paul, the Old Testament was the authoritative 'scripture', yet despite the obvious fact that there would have been professional philosophers who put no stock in such holy books (Acts 17), never once does the NT indicate that Jesus or any of his followers ever tried to convince unbelievers or other "liberal" Christians that the Old Testament was free from all mistakes/errors.  And in Acts 17, when the Gentile philosophers laugh at Paul's bullshit, he leaves immediately:

 30 "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,
 31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."
 32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, "We shall hear you again concerning this."
 33 So Paul went out of their midst.
 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. (Acts 17:30-34 NAU)

But if that passage were modified to reflect modern Christian apologists and their ways, it would read like this:

 30 "God cannot overlook times of ignorance because he is all-holy and must punish sin according to his infinite nature.  God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,
 31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.  However, a day with the Lord is as a thousand years, so while you need to live as if each step was the end, the end probably won't come for thousands of years.   Therefore it can be correct to for Jesus to say in the first century that the end is near, and yet for the end to still be thousands of years into the future."
 32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, "We shall hear you again concerning this."
 33 So Paul stayed there and issued to them the chicken-challenge, taunting them to prove an error in the bible.  Some said this, others said that, and Paul wrangled words with them for many months.

So any Christian of today who chooses to make "bible inerrancy" an issue, is a hypocrite and fool.   And Lord knows, the way the inerrancy debate has played out in the last 2,000 years of Christianity, Jesus probably thinks all "apologists" for inerrancy are just as guilty as the Pharisees of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel, and neglecting the more important matters in the process.

Cold Case Christianity: J. Warner Wallace's god caused the Florida school shooter to kill those kids

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

How Can God Allow Horrific Evil Like School Shootings?

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 01:57 AM PDT

Unsurprisingly, our national conversation about gun violence intensifies following any well-publicized shooting or murder, especially if it occurs in a school or public setting. The recent massacre in Parkland, Florida, for example, leaves many of us searching for answers. As a Christian who happens to be a homicide detective, I’ve wrestled to understand how an all-powerful, all-loving God would allow the horrific evil I’ve observed over the years. Human free-will is an important part of the answer. If God exists and wants us to genuinely love one another, He must first allow us something dangerous: personal freedom. This kind of liberty is risky, because it must, by it’s very nature, also allow the freedom to do great harm. Human free agency is a double-edged knife, and each of us must decide how we will handle it responsibly.
So, as I talk with others about what happened in Parkland (or in any other recent shooting), I do my best to address the issues as both a detectiveand a Christian, balancing the relationship between our God-given freedoms and our civic responsibilities:

Apparently, Wallace is more concerned to make God more politically correct to modern ears than God really is, and less concerned to confine his theological opinion solely to the allegedly "sufficient" biblical langauge. 

In the bible, one reason women are raped is because God causes men to rape, He doesn't merely "allow" it.  In Isaiah 13, God reacts to his Hebrew followers worshipping idols and such, by causing pagan men to war against the Hebrews and rape their women and massacre their children, despite the obvious fact that children cannot rationally be considered accountable for following the religious traditions imposed on them by their parents:

NAU  Isaiah 13:1 The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. 2 Lift up a standard on the bare hill, Raise your voice to them, Wave the hand that they may enter the doors of the nobles. 3 I have commanded My consecrated ones, I have even called My mighty warriors, My proudly exulting ones, To execute My anger. 4 A sound of tumult on the mountains, Like that of many people! A sound of the uproar of kingdoms, Of nations gathered together! The LORD of hosts is mustering the army for battle. 5 They are coming from a far country, From the farthest horizons, The LORD and His instruments of indignation, To destroy the whole land. 6 Wail, for the day of the LORD is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. 7 Therefore all hands will fall limp, And every man's heart will melt. 8 They will be terrified, Pains and anguish will take hold of them; They will writhe like a woman in labor, They will look at one another in astonishment, Their faces aflame. 9 Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning anger, To make the land a desolation; And He will exterminate its sinners from it. 10 For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not flash forth their light; The sun will be dark when it rises And the moon will not shed its light. 11 Thus I will punish the world for its evil And the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless. 12 I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold And mankind than the gold of Ophir. 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of hosts In the day of His burning anger. 14 And it will be that like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with none to gather them, They will each turn to his own people, And each one flee to his own land. 15 Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword. 16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished. 17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold. 18 And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children. 19 And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 20 It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there, Nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there. 21 But desert creatures will lie down there, And their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches also will live there, and shaggy goats will frolic there. 22 Hyenas will howl in their fortified towers And jackals in their luxurious palaces. Her fateful time also will soon come And her days will not be prolonged.   (Isa. 13:1-22, NAU)

The question is:  who is identified in the immediate context of Isaiah's rape prediction (v. 16) as the cause of such rapes?  Clearly it is the pagan men who will do the raping, but...does the context identify who is causing those men to do such things?  Yes:

 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of hosts In the day of His burning anger....... 17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them...

Clearly, the context indicates it is "God" who will cause these men to commit these sexual crimes.

This contextual constraint will not disappear just because you are positively certain your allegedly good God "would never" want such a thing to happen.  If you believe that way, you worship something conjured up on your mind, not the "biblical" god.

Sorry to say, but nothing could be more clear in the bible, than God's willingness to impose horrific atrocities not just on the guilty, but on those who are associated with them (i.e., the little kids can hardly be accountable for being idolatrous, nevertheless their mothers and sisters will be raped and killed, and the kids will be massacred).

For "bible believing" Christians, there can be no discussion of why certain people in America take loaded guns to schools and commit mass murder:  It is God causing them to do so, likely with the same type of coercive telepathic ability God uses in Ezra 1:1 to make even an unbelieving pagan idolater do what God wants:

NAU  Ezra 1:1 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying: (Ezr. 1:1, NAU) 

The Hebrew word for "stirred up" there is ur, the same Hebrew word that underlies Isaiah 13:17, in saying God would "stir up" the Medes against the Hebrews.

So we have to wonder:  If God has both power and willingness to cause people to do whatever he wants, including pagan unbelievers like Cyrus, supra,  then why didn't he use this magic fairy dust on the Hebrews themselves, so that they avoid worshiping idols in the first place?  Wouldn't use of his power in that preemptive way be morally superior to reserving it solely for when the Hebrews disobey Him?

If you don't find it very convincing when heretics use "God's ways are mysterious" to get their asses out of a theological jam, fairness dictates that YOU not be permitted to employ that dishonest excuse either.

Having been been divested of your typical explanation, now what's your excuse for God choosing to cause men to rape idolatrous Hebrew women, when God could also just as easily have waved his magic wand the other way, and caused those Hebrew women to refrain from idolatry and thus avoid Isaiah's threatened atrocities in the first place?

Could it be that the theological statements in the OT arise solely from human imagination that didn't think the ramifications all the way through?  Gee, sinful Christians could never be wrong about bible inerrancy, could they?  Isn't there a law of the universe that says if you've posted at least 349 blog entries in favor of biblical inerrancy, you are incapable of getting that doctrine wrong?