Cold Case Christianity: How Can You Trust Christianity Is True When There Are So Many Unanswered Questions?

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

Cold Case Christianity: 

How Can You Trust Christianity Is True When There Are So Many Unanswered Questions?

Posted: 25 Jan 2019 01:00 AM PST

As a Christian, I have many unanswered questions. The more I study the Christian worldview, the larger my list seems to grow.

Which should tell you something more than simply that God's ways are mysterious.

While essential truths are easier to identify from scripture, there are many non-essential (and more ambiguous) features of Christianity.

 I reject this modern fundie concept of "essential doctrine", as if some doctrines in the bible are more important than others.  The fools who think eschatology is "non-essential doctrine" apparently didn't notice how important the author of Revelation thought such topic was.  He was inspired by God, allegedly to set forth the end time events with all the fervor and ugency that he did.  Nowadays most Christians consider eschatology something that doesn't become important until they find themselves lonely at Starbucks with a laptop and nothing better to do.  Maybe knock on heaven's door and tell Mr. Stupid-in-the-Sky that because he can simply wave his magic wand to get people to believe whatever he wants them to believe (Ezra 1:1), he has no excuse to go around bitching about sinners disobeying him).

The unfathomable aspects of God’s nature typically leave us in awe and without adequate explanation.

And if what you describe fails coherent explanation, there is no intellectual compulsion on the hearers, whatsoever, to believe that crap.  That's why it reeks of sheer stupidity to be dogmatic about this mystical garbage.

To make matters worse, the ancient claims and historical details described in the New Testament are sometimes too remote to accurately verify. As a result, I’m often left with questions in places where I would rather have clarity and evidential certainty. How can we trust Christianity is true when there are so many unanswered questions?

 Were you directing that question to skeptics, or Christians?  If to Christians, then your brand of "apologetics" is weak. Gee, how much effort would it take to get somebody who already believes your religion, to feel confident that it can be defended?  Likely far less than the effort needed to convince a non-Christian.  you are just as weak as James Patrick Holding, who does apologetics for no other reason than to convince Christians their faith can be intellectually defended.  That job is much easier than the other apologetics task of convincing unbelievers to convert.

After a long career as a cold-case detective, I’ve learned to get comfortable with unanswered questions.

One has to wonder whether you'd respect the same attitude coming from an atheist detective writing critiques of Christianity

By the way, Wallace, how many times did your reliance on rank empiricism help you solve crimes, and how many times did your reliance on sheer power of prayer help you solve crimes?  If God doesn't want to interact with us directly the way other people do, are you quite sure God desires "fellowship" with us? 

How about if your human friend Joe says he desires to personally "fellowship" with you, but for your entire life, he has refused all of your requests for personal communication, and has instead told you that you can discern what he has to say by asking questions toward the ceiling, then go around for the next week making your own interpretation of any "coincidences" you find to be attention-getting?  FUCK YOU.

In fact, I’ve never investigated or presented a case to a jury that wasn’t plagued with a number of mysteries.

But those mysteries probably didn't involve spirits taking on bodies...or gods coming down to us in the likeness of men...or invisible evil persons causing us to commit crimes...or alibis that depend on telepathy or remote viewing...or people rising from the dead...or hundreds of people being cured of incurable diseases.

As much as I wish it wasn’t so, there is no such thing as a perfect case; every case has unanswered questions.

Then Christians need to learn that the presence of unanswered questions doesn't intellectually compel atheist bible critics to assent that "god did it", even if such conveniently quick-fix sounds appealing to the Christian.

In fact, when we seat a jury for a criminal trial, we often ask the prospective jurors if they are going to be comfortable making a decision without complete information. If potential jurors can’t envision themselves making a decision unless they can remove every possible doubt (and answer every possible question), we’ll do our best to make sure they don’t serve on our panel.

 Good idea. You might do a seminar on why absolute proof is neither possible nor necessary.  Might be a shocking wake up call to the vast majority of "Christians" out there trying to do "apologetics" and who consistently mistake their cocky confidence with actual reality.  The existence of trees is "obvious".  Jesus' resurrection from the dead is nothing close to obvious.  Isn't it nice how Sunday churches enable large crowds of likeminded people to get away from reality and create their own happy little bubble?

Every case is imperfect; there are no cases devoid of unanswered questions. Every juror is asked to make a decision, even though the evidential case will be less than complete. As detectives and prosecutors, we do our best to be thorough and present enough evidence so jurors can arrive at the most reasonable inference. But, if you need “beyond a possible doubt,” rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt,” you’re not ready to sit on a jury. The standard of proof is “beyond a reasonable doubt” for a good reason; no case is evidentially complete; no case maker can eliminate every possible reservation.

 But Mr. Wallace....what you've never done is demonstrate why the average person walking down the street should impose the same bar on historical evidence that America's courts impose in criminal cases.

For example, the bar in civil lawsuits is "preponderance of the evidence", which is something less than "beyond a reasonable doubt".  How would a person "go wrong" if they evaluated attacks on god and the bible under the "preponderance of evidence" standard? Gee, if we compare the number of miracle-claims that have been confirmed true, against the number of miracle claims that have been successfully debunked, which number do you suppose would be higher?  Or did you suddenly discover that number comparisons are always unfair and from the devil?

You also don't tell the viewers that in civil lawsuits, the Plaintiff wins by default if the Defendant refuses to reply.  Should bible critics apply that standard...and announce their victory against any Christian who responded to their challenge with silence? Hey, you created this "use-court-standards-to-evaluate-truth-claims-in-the-bible" marketing gimmick.  Still interested?

You also don't tell the viewers that in civil lawsuits, the Plaintiff often makes a motion for summary judgment, wherein they argue that one of their factual or legal contentions are so well-founded that no reasonable jury could possibly disagree with them....in which case if the Court agrees, that factual or legal contention will be decided by the Court as a matter of law, the other party loses on that particular point, and the jury will be instructed that the court has already found that matter to be true as a matter of law, and they are not to discuss whether it is true, but only presume that it is in fact, true. Would you recommend that atheist bible critics adopt a similar standard?

You also don't tell the jury that very often in courts a party who had a decent argument, loses the right to give such argument because they did not file their evidence with the court within the time prescribed by the Court.  Would you recommend that atheist bible critics declare victory every time their opponents fail to present counter evidence within the time-window the critic sets up?  Or did you suddenly discover that the ways things get done in courts of law isn't always the best way things should get done in the real world?

Gee, if there are so many realities about America's court system and its rules that would be unfair to apply to the issue of the bible, maybe your marketing gimmick really is just a cheap thrill and nothing serious?

Christians, like jurors, need to get comfortable with unanswered questions. Every worldview has them. As an atheist, I struggled to answer a number of critical questions from my materialistic, naturalistic worldview: How did the universe originate?

 Then you were a stupid atheist, because to ask where the universe came from, is linguistically the same as asking where shoes come from...you are already presupposing the limited nature of the universe in the question by assuming it did indeed have a point of origin, when in fact no cosmologist or astrophysicist will tell you the finite nature of the universe is a settled matter.  Some versions of the big bang set forth a series of bangs and crunches which extend forever into the infinite past.  And the general question of the universe possibly being of infinite size in all directions is left quite open.   Dr. Frank Turek seems to make a lot of Christians happy with his Big Bang argument wherein he pretends the bang was started by a  necessarily spaceless, timeless imamterial being, but the endless bang/crunch model and the theory of the universe being infinite in all directions, continues to loom and hasn't been successfully rebutted...and is consistent with all evidence.

Why does the universe appear fine-tuned?

 Then you must have been a really stupid atheist, because the fine-tuning argument is total bullshit.  You may as well say grandma's attic was "fine-tuned" to generate mold, or that the air in a tire was "fine tuned" to create the hole it did when it escape from the tire during a blowout.  Not at all...stuff happens that way for purely naturalistic reasons.  If it's obvious that applying freezing temperature to water automatically causes it to become more complex at the molecular level, then apparently this feature of reality is just how nature works, and your predictable question "but why does nature work that way" is a non-issue because you don't have any completely chaotic condition-set to compare this universe to, so that you can pretend this universe exhibits traits of intelligent design that are absent from non-intelligently designed sets.   And if your beliefs are true, than absolutely everything is the product of intelligent design, so that you have no genuinely non-designed patterns or realities to compare this universe to and pretend that the differences are significant.  You actually don't know what a "non-designed" universe would look like...do you.

How did life begin in the universe?

If the universe is of infinite age, then every reality it currently exhibits was likely also a reality extending into the infinite past.  No difference in saying the universe has a limitless supply of life, than in saying the universe has an infinite supply of carbon.

Why does biology appear designed?

 Then you were a really stupid atheist, because atheists are not bothered by the design of biological systems.  Design?  Yes.  Intelligent?  No.  Get the book here.

How did our immaterial minds emerge from the material universe?

Then you must have been a really stupid atheist, because the mind is not immaterial, and the arguments for mind-body dualism are total bullshit.  Yes, I've reviewed such arguments, including The Soul: How We Know It’s Real and Why It Matters, J. P. Moreland (Moody 2014).  Feel free to challenge my physicalist understanding of the mind whenever you have the time.  Or tell yourself god doesn't want you to deal with critics personally but only to continue selling Jesus with clever marketing gimmicks.

Wallace, I'll grant that you might be one-step above Josh McDowell.  But that step is very short.  You are not a threat to atheist bible critics because

a) you never debate them, at least as far as i can tell in a google search, and
b) your apologetics never take the form of convincing skeptics, but only of making Christians feel better.

You don't threaten atheist bible critics' beliefs that way, any more than the Mormon teacher who makes Mormons feel better about the historically valid basis for the Book of Mormon, is doing anything to convince non-Mormons that the Book of Mormon is authentic.  It obviously takes far less to convice current believers to stay put, than to convince unbelievers to convert.  Amen?

How can I explain free will and objective moral truth?

Then you must have been a really stupid atheist, because freewill doesn't exist, and there is no such thing as objective moral truth.  There is no reason to think the mind is "free" from the laws of physics, which would mean it is subject to the laws of physics.  And you cannot demonstrate that objective moral truths exist, the morals most humans agree to they agree to solely because they share the same mammalian brain that prioritizes protection, survivial and thriving of individual groups.

And you'll die a quick intellectual death if you try to say your god is the basis for why people think rape is wrong.  Your god admits in Isaiah 13:15-17 to causing men to rape women.  Your god tells Israel in Leviticus 21:9 to burn preteen prostitutes alive.  Sure is funny that humanity's common moral beliefs are only represented in a handful of biblical morals, and we reject the rest out of sheer disgust.

Are you quite sure you are properly prepared to defend your "that wasn't meant to be followed today" theory from my attacks? 

As a philosophical naturalist, my answers to these questions were little more than subjective speculation.

I think I'm starting to see why you became a Christian. 

My worldview was incomplete at the most foundational level. I had many unanswered questions, yet hung on to my atheistic perspective in spite of these mysteries. Every one of us clings to a worldview for which we have less than complete information. Every one of us has a series of unanswered questions.

If we cannot fault Christians for hanging onto their world view despite unanswered questions, you cannot fault atheist bible critics for hanging onto their worldview despite unanswered questions.  Fair is fair. 

All of us have to step out from the end of an evidence trail to a place of decision. That step across our unanswered questions is sometimes called a 'leap of faith'.

As a theist and as a Christian, I am far more comfortable with my unanswered questions than I used to be as an atheist.

 With a big daddy in the sky ready to correct every yucky that comes along, I can understand your sense of comfort.

My questions are fewer and less foundational.

Atheists who become Mormons could testify similarly, but you'd scream they've taken a turn for the worse.  Apparently, choosing which religion is right constitutes playing with your eternal fate.  You cannot blame the atheist who says its probably safer to persist in the error of atheism, than to latch onto and start promoting what could turn out to be theological heresy.

The existence of many competing forms of Christianity, and the existence of fundamentalists who say you'll go to hell for theological heresy, provides rational warrant to atheists to steer clear of the entire spiritual mess.  Whatever trouble they are currently in, the odds are very good they can only make things worse if in their imperfect way they end up siding with the wrong form of Christianity.  Amen?   Well gee, if even genuinely born-again Christians can get theology wrong, how could you dare pretend that us imperfect sinners can become confident, in less than 50 years of graduate-level bible study, which version of Christianity is true? 

What, are you not aware that very smart intellectual Christian scholars have been pointing the heretical finger at each other for centuries?  Isn't the atheist bible critic doing less damage to himself by choosing to think that buying drinks for girls at the bar is "less dangerous" than studying the bible?

How hot will hell be for atheists who buy drinks for women at bars?

How hot will hell be for atheists who convert to the wrong form of Christianity? 

FUCK YOU.

They are related more to non-essential issues than critical, core claims.

How essential is it to confess the bodily resurrection of Jesus? Gee, is there some intellectual obligation I'm under that requires me to fully evaluate the Geisler v. Harris debate and then choose which of them got it right?  That's funny, I never noticed such obligation before.  See here.

How essential is it to recognize the Catholic view of justification as heresy?  Gee, is there some intellectual obligation I'm under requiring me to fully evaluate all arguments back and forth between Catholic and Protestant scholars about how to interpret Paul's doctrine of "justification", and then choose which of them got it right?  See here.

(how long do you suppose the non-Christian must evaluate Catholic and anti-Catholic arguments before such person could be correctly said to have a comprehensive understanding of the issues sufficient to justify their drawing conclusions about the matter?  Now what? does the non-Christian have an "obligation" to attain this level of knowledge about Christianity's in-house disputes?).

How essential is "salvation"? After all, aren't there Christian bible scholars who take the liberal position that everybody is going to be saved?  How long must I evaluate this liberal v. conservative debate, before I've attained sufficiently comprehensive knowledge of both sides so as to rationally justify starting to draw conclusions about it?  Two days?  10 years?  You don't know, correct?

How essential is the Trinity?  How long must I evaluate everything said by Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Unitarians, Jesus-Only Pentecostals, and review the pre-Trintarian crap from the Council of Nicaea, before I will be rationally warranted to make a decision?  Doesn't the fact that representatives of these interests hold their unique viewpoint their entire life, suggest that such a course of investigation is not likely to yield reasonably confident answers?

The evidence I have points me in a given direction, and the gap between what I have and what I would like is much shorter than it used to be.

 If you had been a smarter atheist, you wouldn't have asked uninformed questions and persisted in the kind of ignorance that Christianity pretends to have answers for.

All of us have to step out from the end of an evidence trail to a place of decision. That step across our unanswered questions is sometimes called a “leap of faith”. As a Christian, I don’t have to leap blindly and jump all that far. Yes, I still have questions, but I have more than enough evidence to make a reasonable decision. I’ve come to trust Christianity is true, even with a few unanswered questions.

Sorry, Mr. Wallace, but this is little more than a Christian pep-talk or "preaching to the choir". Once again, as usual, you offer nothing that disturbs atheist bible critics in the least...except for the dumb ones.

Cold Case Christianity: How Can You Trust Christianity Is True If You Haven’t Examined All the Alternatives?

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

Cold Case Christianity:

How Can You Trust Christianity Is True If You Haven’t Examined All the Alternatives?

Posted: 23 Jan 2019 01:59 AM PST

I’ve had the privilege to speak on university campuses across the country, making a case for the reliability of the New Testament Gospels and the truth of the Christian Worldview.

Then your god must be lazy, as he apparently has the ability to get people to do whatever he wants by simply waving his magic wand, see Ezra 1:1.   Why did he involve you?  Nothing good on cable?

One of the most common questions asked in the Q and A is something similar to: “Have you taken the time to apply the same approach with all the other religious worldviews?” Sometimes people ask this question because they are curious about how well other ancient religious claims (or alleged eyewitness accounts) hold up under investigative scrutiny. But many times this question is followed by a more pointed objection: “How can you trust Christianity is true if you haven’t examined all the alternatives?”

Given the large number of spiritual claims circulating across the globe (and throughout history), why should we conclude one (or any) of them is true until we’ve examined all of them? At first blush, this seems like a reasonable approach, and when it’s asked by a skeptic, it’s typically offered in an effort to expose the inadequate or incomplete nature of my investigation (or some underlying bias I may have against opposing claims). Although I investigated several theistic and atheistic worldviews prior to becoming a Christian, I didn’t examine every view. Is my certainty related to Christianity therefore misplaced? Should the limited nature of my investigation disqualify or temper the case I’m presenting to skeptics and believers? I don’t think so.

Then get ready for atheists to remind you that they don't need to investigate every miracle or religious claim to reasonably conclude that theism is false.  In fact, nobody is required to refrain from drawing conclusions until they have examined every last bit of possible evidence.  But since what exactly constitutes a sufficient amount of data-collection and analysis to justify starting to draw conclusions, cannot be precisely delineated, you'll have to live with the fact that reasonable people can disagree on at what point during investigation one becomes reasonable to start drawing conclusions.

I have no trouble saying Christians can be reasonable to believe Jesus rose from the dead.  Reasonableness is not commensurate with correctness.  Atheists can be "reasonable" to deny god's existence too.

Since your bible says atheists are fools (Psalm 14:1), we can prove such bible texts to be error by simply showing that atheism isn't foolish.  Had the bible limited itself to saying atheism is wrong, the stakes wouldn't be so high.

In every criminal trial, the investigators and prosecutors are obligated to present the evidence related to one defendant. While the burden of proof lies with the prosecutorial team, the prosecution is not required to have examined every possible alternative suspect.

Ok, then atheists aren't required to examine every possible alternative religion after they dispense with Christianity. 

If I am investigating a case in which the suspect was initially described as a white male, 25 to 35 years of age with brown hair, the potential suspect pool in Los Angeles County would be quite large; there may be hundreds of thousands fitting this description. As I make the affirmative case related to one of the men in this large group, I’m under no obligation to make the case against the others.

Likewise, atheists are not required to make a case against all other possible forms of theism or dieism.

In fact, when the jury evaluates the case and decides whether the defendant is guilty, they will do so without any consideration of the alternatives. If the evidence is strong enough to reasonably infer the defendant’s involvement, the jury will make a confident decision, even though many, many alternatives were left unexamined.

Which is precisely why so many innocent people are convicted...prosecutors can do a good job of making innocent people look guilty, and it is likely the lack of critical thinking skills plaguing the average person or juror, that is some of the reason the prosecutor's bullshit case sounds strong.

The case for Christianity is made in a similar way. While it may be helpful to examine a particular alternative worldview on occasion to show its inadequacies or errors, these deficiencies fail to establish Christianity as factual. How can you trust Christianity is true if you haven’t examined all the alternatives? The case for the Christian worldview must first be made affirmatively even if no other claim is examined negatively. If there’s enough evidence to reasonably infer Christianity is true, we needn’t look any further.

Then atheists can similarly be reasonable to decide at which point they've falsified sufficient numbers of theistic arguments, that they need not worry about any possible theism arguments they might not have seen yet.  Just like no Christian worries about the possibility that there is very solid archaeological and historical evidence for Mormonism and we just haven't seen it yet.  At some point, trifling possibilities really don't stand in the way of the reasonableness of drawing confident conclusions.

The affirmative case will either stand or fall on its own merit, even if we’re unable to examine any other “suspect”.

yes.

The Christian worldview does not require “blind faith”. In fact, Jesus repeatedly presented evidence to support His claims of Deity.

No, the story of the NT is told by unknown authors, and they allege that Jesus went around doing miracles and making claims that wouldn't be true of anyone except god.  Once again, Wallace, you are preaching to the choir, you are very FAR from sounding convincing to people who haven't already swallowed the Christian bait hook line and sinker.

The Christian worldview does not require “blind faith”.

yes it does, read the following verses.  I've also explained why apologists are dead wrong in their efforts to pretend these verses are talking about evidence-based faith:

 27 Then He said to Thomas, "Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing."
 28 Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"
 29 Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed." (Jn. 20:27-29 NAU)

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Heb. 11:1 NAU) 

 23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
 24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?
 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
 26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; (Rom. 8:23-26 NAU)

 Wallace continues:

In fact, Jesus repeatedly presented evidence to support His claims of Deity and when John the Baptist expressed doubt, Jesus responded with yet another evidential display of His power.

The bible says Jesus did miracles.  And you think THIS is supposed to pass for "apologetics"?  Ok, then apparently we don't need your books and seminars and lectures...all we need to do is read the bible, and presto, we know it's true and we just don't wanna believe it...right?

Christians are not asked to believe without evidence (or worse yet, in spite of the evidence), but to instead place their trust in the most reasonable inference from the evidence, even though there may still be several unanswered questions.

 But where exactly the inference becomes sufficiently unwarranted as to call it "blind faith" is not capable of precise adjudication, which means you'll have to allow that reasonable people can reasonably disagree on where to draw that line.  

Christianity is evidentially reasonable, even if we are unable to examine every possible alternative.

We have to wonder how you'd respond to an atheist who said "Atheism is evidentially reasonable, even if we are unable to examine every possible alternative."

Biblical Inerrancy and Papal Infallibility: Twin sisters of uselessness

Protestant Christians often criticize the Catholic doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 

The argument goes like this:  if the Catholics are going to protect this doctrine by pretending that it only takes effect in limited circumstances (such as when the pope speaks to the entire church upon an issue of faith or morals), and if they further insist this authority hasn't been exercised by the pope more than 5 times in the last 2,000 years, then how can Catholics claim God thought giving such authority to men was a useful good?

Can we seriously say that God wanted the church to be sure of Mary's bodily Assumption (declared infallible by Pope Pius XII in 1950, see here), but not about Jesus being fully equal with the Father (neither Pope Sylvester I nor any Pope after him made infallible pronouncement about the majority vote at Nicaea)? 

Well gee, what's more important?  Jesus' equality with the Father, or Mary flying into the sky?   Most Protestants think your eternal fate is affected by whether you say Jesus was creature or creator,  but no Christian seriously thinks your eternal fate is decided based on what you have to say about Mary flying into the sky.

That is a strong attack on the feasibility of Papal Infallibility.  The more a person needs the ability they actually possess, and yet the more they avoid employing it to solve problems, the more stupid they appear to be.  If this ability wasn't exercised more than 5 times in 2,000 years, doesn't there exist a substantial likelihood that the ability actually never existed?

I don't see how such attack is diminished when the subject becomes biblical infallibility or "inerrancy".

First, inerrancy has a worse track record than papal infallibility.  The latter has at least assured us Mary went bodily into heaven, bible "inerracy" has done precisely nothing to guarantee that any Christian doctrine is true, except inerrancy itself, which merely fallaciously begs the question.  That is, nobody can really demonstrate how it is that the doctrine of inerrancy actually does anything in the practical world to move people from error into truth or preserve them from falling into error.  Another way of putting it would be to say that inerrancy presents itself as a tool to be employed to achieve some type of goal, but what that goal is, cannot be reasonably determined.  There is nothing about "bible inerrancy" that provides infallible assurance that your interpretation of the bible is correct...or that you are correct in your decision to say certain biblical ethics apply to modern day Christians, etc.

Second, suppose for a moment that the U.S. Constitution was the inerrant word of God.  Do you suppose this new truth would suddenly cause America's legal system to finally come to agreement on what the Constitution does and doesn't allow?  Hardly.  It's inerrancy would do precisely nothing to put an end to the aggressively polarized legal wars between the ACLU and everybody else, as they verbally masscare each other on whether the Constitution supports gay marriage, death penalty, etc. 

So we'd then be reasonable to question that assumption:  Why are you saying the U.S. Constitution is the inerrant word of God, when such a doctrine appears to be little more than a useless academic question whose answer provides no real-world benefits and appears to do little more than convince people to become obstinately bigoted about how correct they are?

Third, it is reasonable to ask inerrantists what purpose there is in going around arguing in favor of bible inerrancy and fending off skeptical attacks:  doing this isn't going to settle any doctrinal controversy (attacks on inerrancy continually convince people that this doctrine is false).  And when we do hear of the occassional unbeliever or Christian who changes their mind and concluded the bible is "inerrant", in nearly every case this is not the result of years of scholarly study, but the result of other influences.  There's no shortage of fundies on the internet who swear they were professional atheist bible critics for decades before the truth finally brought them kicking and screaming over the line, but we have to decide on a case by case basis which of these mostly anonymous loudmouths are telling the truth and which are just trying to save face.

Fourth, inerrancy's uselessness and danger is legitimately inferred from the fact that it emboldens heretics to think their faulty opinions are beyond criticism, a thing that dims one's prospects for enabling them to see the error of their way.  Do you find it difficult to persuade Jehovah's Witnesses of how wrong they are?  Might their view of the bible as inerrant be some of what's causing them to think their interpretations of it are beyond reasonable criticism?  How short of a walk is it, really, from "the bible is inerrant" to "my interpretations of the bible are inerrant"?

Fifth, inerrancy has done much to hurt the cause of likemindedness demanded by the biblical authors (1st Cor. 1:10, Philippians 2:2, 4:2).  Geisler's criticism of Mike Licona is just the tip of the ice-box.

Finally, the obvious fact that God is quite capable of accomplishing any purpose he has for humanity without requiring that they first become perfect, makes clear that God can also guide you by use of imperfect teaching resources, such as sinful family, friends or Christian teachers.  If you don't tell everybody in the world to fuck off merely because their sin nature leaves you no infallible assurances they won't mislead you, then apparently it really is stupid to pretend that one little authentic error in the originals of the bible opens the floodgates to perpetual satanic indecisiveness.

The "assurance" and "comfort" that "inerrancy" brings is completely hollow, given the rat's nest of finger-pointing heretics who all adopt the doctrine,  and would only sound edifying superficial ungrounded persons whose idea of security is still at the level of an infant.

For all these reasons, I insist that the practical uselessness and controversial nature of papal infallibility constitute the same problem for bible inerrancy.  In both cases, the doctrines give you something to yap about, maybe even feel confident about, but at the end of the day, the most practical real-world good that is accomplished by "knowing" that the bible is "inerrant" consists of its tempting people to do what they usually do anyway, and falsely move from "inerrant source" to "inerrant interpretation".

I'm open to any Christian scholar or apologist correcting this blog piece by pointing out how the demonstrable theological good of inerrancy outweighs the demonstrable sins of pride, slander and closed-mindedness everybody knows this doctrine motivates people to commit.  While in academia there is distinction between the bible's inherent inerrancy and one's interpretation of the bible, this distinction evaporates in the real world.  "You can know that pre-millenialism is true because that's what god's inerrant word teaches."  If people are not truth-robots, a doctrine like inerrancy will likely cause more harm than good.

But if the inerrancy of the bible doesn't provide you with a way to infallibly interpret the bible, then the doctrine appears to do what Papal Infallibility does...solve precisely nothing, create unnecessary controversy and give the church yet another doctrine to divide over.

For all these reasons, I would argue that if the bible teaches inerrancy, the problems outlined herein would justify rejecting the doctrine.

Frank Turek's Big Bang is evaporating

Frank Turek appears to have done more than any other Christian apologist to convince others that his particular creationist version of the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe not only implies god's existence, but is the only form of the theory that deserves any comment.

The trouble with Turek's theory is as follows:

First, I think the theory is total bullshit, it is a poster-child for ad hoc excuse making, as the theory .  Reminds one of a Christian apologist who is losing a debate, and who thus automatically assume any logically possible alternative they can conjure up to get away from a beating, is the only reasonable hypothesis.

Second, many creationists who decry evolution also say the Big Bang theory is false scientifically AND biblically. AiG and ICR deny it outright, see here and here.  I agree with them, especially on the bible:  one standard rule of hermeneutics is that how the originally intended readers would likely have understood the bible author's words, must weigh heavily on any interpretation purporting to be "objective".  There is simply no fucking way that pre-scientific goat-herders would have either read Genesis 1-2 or any Psalms, and left room in their minds for the possibility that all this happy horseshit was the result of a cosmological explosion.  It is more consistent with patterns of ANE thinking to assume they would have understood such biblical wording to be saying God created the universe the way a carpenter builds a house.

Discoveries in the ways ANE people thought are forcing inerrantist Christian scholars to make damning admissions and otherwise set forth ridiculous trifles in the effort to protect the biblical wording from the charge of error.  See discussion of John Walton's "Lost World of Scripture" here, where Walton reluctantly admits he must disagree with Whitcomb and Morris's attempts to show the scientific "inerrancy" of Genesis 1-2.  He also says:

The point is, when believing in inerrancy is a requirement to be a Christian (which some Christians infer—if not outright claim), that can be a pill too big to swallow, especially when there is data in the Bible that doesn’t seem to fit what most people understand by inerrancy.

Apparently, conceptions of the universe aren't the only theories undergoing inevitable evolution.  God's biblical truths are about as infallible as geocentrism.

Third, in the August 2014 issue of Sky and Telescope, we were told that there was no "before the Big Bang".  See here.

Fourth, In the February 2019 issue of Sky and Telescope, bets are hedging:  now we are being told

The Big Bang theory doesn't rule out the possibility that there was some pre-existing universe from which ours sprang...there are almost as many theories as there are theorists..."  (p. 18).

Fifth, Turek's argument that the BB was the beginning of the universe, is a misunderstanding:

Was the Big Bang the origin of the universe?
It is a common misconception that the Big Bang was the origin of the universe. In reality, the Big Bang scenario is completely silent about how the universe came into existence in the first place. In fact, the closer we look to time "zero," the less certain we are about what actually happened, because our current description of physical laws do not yet apply to such extremes of nature.  (see here)

Sixth, there are BB models that assume the universe has always existed, one is called the Endless Cycle model, which allows for a universe trillions of years old, which moves us much further in the direction of "infinite universe" than the standard model which says the age of the universe is merely in the billions of years:

The Cyclic Theory agrees that there was some violent event 14 billion years ago – we still call it a "big bang" – but this was not the beginning of space and time. The key events causing the creation of matter, radiation, galaxies and stars occurred billions of years before the bang. Furthermore, there was not just one bang. The evolution of the universe is cyclic with big bangs occurring once every trillion or so, each one accompanied by the creation of new matter and radiation that forms new galaxies, stars, planets, and presumably life. Ours is only the most recent cycle.(see here)

 Finally, new discoveries allege that there are not just trillions of stars, but trillions of galaxies:

 Up to now, astronomers usually said we know of about 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe (meaning out to our event horizon, a look-back time of 13.8 billion years). Now the number can be said to be about 2 trillion, with the caveat that this estimate doesn't go back a full 13.8 billion years, it's 600 million years short. (here).

One of the most fundamental questions in astronomy is that of just how many galaxies the universe contains. The landmark Hubble Deep Field, taken in the mid-1990s, gave the first real insight into the universe's galaxy population. Subsequent sensitive observations such as Hubble's Ultra Deep Field revealed a myriad of faint galaxies. This led to an estimate that the observable universe contained about 200 billion galaxies.
The new research shows that this estimate is at least 10 times too low. (here)

And don't even get me started on the linguistic absurdities of the standard BB model, whereby we are supposed to believe incoherent concepts like the "beginning" of "time", which logically implies a time before time.

I do not propose the new developments to make an infinite universe the only reasonable interpretation.  I'm more conservatively only setting forth such official science statements to show that Frank Turek's Christian dogmatism about how the BB implies a limited universe, is entirely unwarranted and smacks more of preaching to the choir, than of dispassionate scholasticism.

I would think it borders on dishonest for Turek to pretend that his particular version of the BB theory is so sufficiently supported that he can just pretend that the other models, which admit the universe has an infinite history and size, are unworthy of serious consideration.  Even if a big bang happened, no, Dr. Turek, that does not automatically imply a "spaceless, timeless, immaterial intelligence".

Cold Case Christianity: Yes, Christian hypocrisy falsifies some New Testament promises

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

Cold Case Christianity: 

Quick Shot: “Christian hypocrisy proves Christianity is false”

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 01:10 AM PST

Our “Quick Shot” series offers brief answers to common objections to the Christian worldview.

Thus increasing the chances that the Christian reader will be misled by a superficial treatment of the issues.

Each response is limited to one paragraph.

Somehow, I'm not feeling threatened by your apologetics.

These responses are designed to (1) answer the objection as concisely as possible, (2) challenge the objector to think more deeply about his or her claim, and (3) facilitate a “gospel” conversation.

So if an atheist did something similar and offered the reader a response that (1) answers the Christian objection as concisely as possible, (2) challenges the Christian objector to think more deeply about his or her claim, and (3) facilitate an "unbeliever" conversation, you would agree that this shows objectivity on the part of the atheist.

In this article, we’re offering “Quick Shot” responses to the objection, Quick Shot: “Christian hypocrisy proves Christianity is false.”

Response #1:

“Does atheist hypocrisy prove atheism is false?

No.  But if we claimed atheism was guided by a higher intelligence that wasn't 'god', and that as long as you are sincere in seeking out and living by that intelligence, your life will be morally transformed, then the better the evidence that a person was a "real" atheist, and the better the evidence that no serious moral transformation has taken place despite their years of being a committed atheist, then the more likely it would be that atheism was false.  The problem would not be limited to the individual person failing to live up to their professed standard.  The standard itself would appear to be false.  In the case of other atheists who did undergo a moral transformation, this would not show that the intelligence causing the moral transformation existed, because such a change would be explainable in purely naturalistic terms not requiring the positing of any higher intelligence.

By the way, Jesus apparently wanted unbelievers to conclude Christianity was true from the fact that his disciples consistently followed his morals:

 16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:16 NAU)

That means Jesus wasn't really smart, otherwise, under the same principle, non-atheists should glorify atheism if they find atheists walking according to "atheist morals".

If Christianity did not assure its followers that they are transformed, you wouldn't be having a problem.

If a scientist lies about his findings, does this undermine all scientific endeavors, or just expose a single hypocrite?

 If the scientist claims to be guided by an omniscient invisible and 100% honest space alien, how long would you trifle about the fact that his dishonesty doesn't necessarily disprove the existence of the honest space alien?  Not long.

All of us are hypocritical in some way; it’s part of our human condition. We are consistently inconsistent, some more than others. This says less about our respective belief systems than it does about our human condition.

Unless the belief system you pretend to follow insists that you'll stop sinning if you are truly born again.  It does:

 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. (1 Jn. 3:6 NAU)

Wallace continues:

I won’t hold the inconsistent behavior of some atheists against atheism as a whole, if you don’t hold the inconsistent behavior of some Christians against Christianity as a whole. Does that sound fair?

No, atheism has never made claims that it causes its followers to become more morally conservative.  If you delete the parts of the bible that assure Christians of a new morally conservative nature in Christ, then bunches of Christians sinning wouldn't operate to falsify Christianity.

So technically, Christians sinning obviously doesn't operate to deny the historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead (which is very weak on historical grounds anyway),  but their sinning DOES falsify portions of Christianity that promise the believer that they won't sin.  Yes, 1st John makes room for the possibility of Christians sinning, but that does not automatically require that we become obligated to harmonize the "you won't sin" stuff with the "you might sin" stuff and accept any logically possibly harmonization scenario.

I see nothing wrong with assuming the author of 1st John was like most of today's Christians...he held to an inconsistent theology.

Isn’t it more important to examine the evidence for our claims than to critique each other’s misbehavior?”

Yes, I think so, but not according to Jesus, who takes the possibility of others critiquing his follower's behavior, as a motive for them to act righteously so they don't give the critics an excuse: 

  46 "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
 47 "If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
 48 "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt. 5:46-48 NAU)

  28 "For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?
 29 "Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him,
 30 saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' (Lk. 14:28-30 NAU)

 Apostle Paul also felt possible critique from unbelievers was a reason to avoid certain behavior:

 23 Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad? (1 Cor. 14:23 NAU)

Wallace continues:

Response #2:

“Why would you be surprised when a Christian behaves hypocritically? There are two reasons why Christians will always be considered more hypocritical than non-Christians. First, our worldview is public and objective rather than private and subjective. Non-Christians understand the standard Christians are trying to personify. It is publicly available (just read a Bible) and hasn’t changed in two thousand years.

One has to wonder about the allegedly changeless text of the bible over the centuries. It certainly hasn't proven itself to be of any benefit to the churches using it, which disagree with each other on nearly every bit of theology taught therein, except perhaps God's existence and Jesus' gender.  God is like the stupid father who tries to assure his daughter she can get to college reliably, with a new car...but never gives her the keys.

We ask the same question of Catholics and their papal infallibility doctrine:  How exactly has papal infallibility or the changeless nature of the biblical text resulted in any theological benefit to Christians?  Doesn't their ceaseless division over interpretation and bible doctrine thwart any good the changeless nature of the text might otherwise have bequeathed?

Christians, however, have no idea if an unbeliever is violating his or her moral standard because the unbeliever holds it privately as a matter of personal opinion.

 That's not true of most unbelievers.  They all have friends and family who recognize that person's unique morality.  Unbelievers are often involved in personal relationships where a moral act by one of them causes more intimacy or even division.  Saying unbelievers keep their morality hidden is total bullshit.

But Christians have a more difficult problem because it doesn't matter if the NT ethics are publicly known, Christians disagree with them.  Smart Christians realize not all stealing is sin, not all lying is sin,  not all intimate contact before marriage is sin, and dumb Christians seriously argue that the NT doesn't condemn homosexuality.  No, it is far from clear that a Christian's committment to the NT thus arms his critics with potential to critique him.  He can do away with anything in the bible he doesn't like, through the artifice of interpretation.  And after that point, he isn't acting contrary to NT ethics, because you either misunderstand the NT, or you don't realize that those 1st standards no longer apply 21st century Christians.

Secondly, the Christian standard is grounded in the perfect moral nature of God.

All you are doing now is preaching to your classical theist choir.  You wouldn't be able to get away with this if you were talking to a bunch of Christians who denied god's perfection, such as open-theists.

While atheists can meet their own personal standards, Christians never achieve the moral perfection of God’s standard.

Which makes them stupid for trying.  How long will you try to jump 200 feet in the air utilizing no other propulsion mechanism than your own unaided biological muscular strength...before you decide that the impossibility of ever achieving the goal constitutes good reason to give up?  4 days?

And lets not forget the many Christians who have tried the conservative approach and failed because their genetics cause them to find normative human behavior too enticing to resist.

We know – in advance- that we will always fall short of the mark.

Probably because you don't know your NT very well.  Several passages express or imply that human beings can actually achieve all that God requires of them.  See Luke 1:6:

 5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
 6 They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. (Lk. 1:5-6 NAU)

 Really?  God thought they were righteous because they walked blamelessly in all his commands?  Wouldn't that contradict Romans 3:10-23?   No, of course not.  If the asshole defense attorney can think of a logically possible way to reconcile evidence of his client's guilt, with his own theory that his client is innocent, well then gee, the jury has no choice but to see things his way or admit their own stupidity...right?

Given the objectively high, public standard posited by Christianity,

 Correction, posited by your particular fundamentalist form of Christianity.  Many other Christians, with good reason, are far more relaxed about sin.  Like James Patrick Holding, whose 20 years of internet apologetics still has him engaging in the sin of slandering even more than he did when he first started.  I'm waiting for the day when Holding writes an article entitled "Why Jesus might want you to tell lies about other people".

why would you ever be surprised to witness Christian hypocrisy,

because the NT makes very plain that those who sin are hypocrites who never knew Jesus:

 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. (1 Jn. 3:6 NAU)

 But actually we aren't surprised when Christians sin, we just note that it often conflicts with what the particular hypocrite professes to believe about his own moral obligations under Christ.

and why would you hold this against Christianity, rather than applaud Christianity for its high standard?”

Remove the "be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind" bullshit from the NT, then sinful Christians won't falsify Christianity's promise to morally transform people.

While atheists can meet their own personal standards, Christians never achieve the moral perfection of God’s standard.

 Wrong, Luke 1:6.

Cold Case Christianity: Wallace's question-begging attempt to salvage the argument from logic

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

Cold Case Christianity: Is God Real?

Examining Atheistic Explanations for the Laws of Logic as “Brute Realities”        

Posted: 11 Jan 2019 01:38 AM PST

All rational discussions (even those related to the existence or non-existence of God) require the prior foundation of logical absolutes.

Which is precisely why you are never going to "show" that such a foundation has a foundation.

And by the way, Wallace, your answers here are logically consistent...meaning your attempt to account for the laws of logic are already presupposing the validity of the very logic you pretend to be giving an independent accounting of. 

That's called begging the question.  You can coherently talk about the time before Billy tied his shoe, but you cannot coherently talk about the time before time.  Likewise, you can coherently talk about where babies come from, because the answer wouldn't require you to beg the question of the baby's existence, but you cannot coherently talk about where logic comes from, because your answer would have to be in conformity to logic first, before anybody would be intellectually obligated to pay attention to it. 

You can possibly do that, of course, by giving a non-logical explanation for the laws of logic.  That will safeguard you from begging the question, but then the fact that the answer is "non-logical" is more than sufficient to reasonably justify the atheist to toss it aside immediately without even bothering with it.  

Face it buddy, you cannot coherently talk about where logic comes from, unless you wish to get stupid and pretend that some non-logical explanations are superior to the pro-logical explanations?

Only theism, however, can adequately account for the existence of the transcendent Laws of Logic. If God exists, He is the absolute, objective, transcendent standard of truth; the Laws of Logic are simply a reflection of His nature.

Not true. God's existence doesn't tell you to what degree he controls reality, anymore than saying "space alien" necessarily implies an eternal intelligence that can create other worlds with a snap of their fingers. All you are doing is blindly insisting on the conservative Christian definition of God (i.e., classical theism), and pretending such definition is the only one that is plausible.  All you are doing is appealing to presuppositions your mostly conservative Christian audience already hold.   You are like the open-theist who tells his followers: "If God exists, he is changeable, imperfect, and learns."

God did not create these laws. They exist as an extension of His rational thinking, and for this reason, they are as eternal as God Himself.

You provide no biblical basis for this, you are just preaching to the choir.  Furthermore, there are sufficient problems with the general concept of theism, that you are foolish to pretend that a theory of an intelligent invisible immaterial spaceless timeless thing is supposed to be "better" than any theory atheists might have, which would necessarily be somewhat more plausible by being grounded in empirical realities that can be checked and verified, at least somewhat more so than your invisible undetectable "god".

Is God real?

No.  But like the prosperity gospel and voodoo, as long as you think god is real, you can help yourself feel better about the cold cruel world.  The same is true with respect to Hinduism and Mormonism.  These aren't true religions either, but that does precisely nothing to ebb their popularity.  Mormons are often confronted with hard times just like any Christian, and just like Christians, Mormons find great comfort and solace in prayer and in fellowship with others who share their specific theological presuppositions.  But since you don't believe God is really giving them any comfort, we discover then the ability of human beings to be so deceived, they can feel comforted by mere thoughts about something that doesn't exist, in this case, the Mormon god.

Without God as a source for the transcendent Laws of Logic, this question (and any logical journey toward the answer) would be impossible to examine.

 Logic is axiomatic.  You don't "examine" it, because the framework you'd have to use for analysis would be the assumption that the laws of logic are indeed valid, otherwise known as begging the question.

As an atheist, I rejected the existence of God and offered a number of objections and alternative explanations in an effort to account for the Laws of Logic.

No doubt because you were an ignorant atheist and didn't realize what axioms were, and why they are exempt from explanatory theories.

In yesterday’s post we outlined the theistic explanation for these laws. Today and tomorrow we’ll examine several naturalistic objections to see if any of them might offer a viable alternative. We’ll begin with efforts to describe the Laws of Logic as “brute realities” of the universe:

Objection:

Aren’t the Laws of Logic simply the “brute” characteristics of reality? Both material and immaterial things must abide by boundaries of existence in order to exist in the first place. The “Laws of Logic” are simply a part of these boundaries. They are not transcendent laws from a Transcendent Mind; they are simply among the natural boundaries of existence.

Both theists and atheists agree the Laws of Logic are brute somethings.

Correct.

Atheists might claim Logic is a brute, innate fact of existence, while theists might argue Logic is a brute, innate reflection of the nature and thinking of God. In either case, these laws would have to be eternal, uncaused and necessary.

 Correct.

Nothing can exist without the simultaneous existence of these laws.

Which means arguments about why logic exists, cannot exist without the simultaneous existence of these laws.

But let’s now look at how both sides account for their existence:

On Atheism

The brute Laws of Logic simply exist. They are eternal and uncaused. Nothing can exist without them. That’s just the way it is.

On Theism

God is eternal, uncaused, omniscient and omnipotent.

Your explanation is far more complex, controversial and contradictory than anything the atheist has to offer.  The whole idea of a spaceless timeless immaterial intelligence is just stupid, and there is no compelling evidence that any such thing has ever existed, I don't give a shit how many times you refer to the mysterious deaths that occurred on the set of the Exorcist, or how the Lutz's seemed to be telling the truth about things that go bump in the night.  You simply recite "eternal, uncaused, omniscient and omnipotent", and your devoted Christian followers come running to you like hungry cowboys come running at the sound of the dinner bell.  You are preaching the choir, you are not refuting the atheist position.  You are not a scholar providing rebuttal to another theory.  You are a pastor banging his fist in church.

He is the all-knowing and all-powerful Creator; the necessary, uncaused first cause of all matter, space and time.

 Is this the part where your audience is supposed to shout "amen!" ?

There is no such thing as the universe being caused, the universe is eternal and infinite.  Otherwise, you'd have to admit it can be coherent t talk about the time before God created time, which is, of course, not coherent.  Feel free to google William Lane Craig for the next 50 years, his foolish distinctions between logical and temporal causality do not make it possible to talk coherently about the beginning of time.  The beginning of "time" is necessarily stupid and question-begging.  Not to mention that "time" is completely man-made, and the bible does not express or imply God lives in some type of eternal "now" that is different than the temporal progression of events we experience on earth.  That's just modern Christianity finding it irresistable to go beyond biblical revelation in their spiritually immature zeal to provide more specific rebuttal to the world than what God saw fit to authorize.

Unless you are a Pentecostal and you think every time you set forth theology not specifically backed up in the bible, this is supposed to be new revelation?

By the way, the bible never teaches that god created time, in fact, every biblical description of heavenly events portrays them as being limited to temporal progression no less than biblical authors describe earth-based events to be.  Before you impress the babies with talk about God creating time, be sure you are on biblical footing.  You aren't. 

He has thoughts and possesses a particular character, essence and nature.

Which only make sense if he is physical, since your alleged "evidence" that intelligence can exist without physicality, is absurd, I don't care how many books by J.P. Moreland are on your library shelf.

Because He is all-powerful and all-knowing, these attributes are perfected (an all-powerful and all-knowing God has the power to eliminate imperfection).

I'm an atheist, yet you are asking me to now suddenly discover that the Christians who are open-theist are wrong.  Gee, how long would it take for us to get over that hurdle before you could legitimately continue to blindly presume the truth of your classical theism?  5 minutes?  50 years?

And if god has the power to eliminate imperfection, then he is no less responsible for continued imperfection on this earth, than the parent is responsible for the house burning down if they knew their kids were playing with matches, and chose to do nothing but sit there and watch...like god does.  We call it "neglect".

The Laws of Logic are simply an attribute and reflection of God’s perfect existence; God does not create these laws, they are an innate and immutable aspect of His nature.

 Then the bible cannot be the word of god, because it contradicts itself.   Compare John 3:16 with Psalm 5:5, and check a thesaurus before you assure me that the opposite of love isn't hate but apathy.   And be sure to specifically note: Psalm 5:5 doesn't say God merely hates the sin.  In that verse God's hatred in upon the sinner or "worker" of iniquity, i.e., the person themself, not merely their sin.  But there is no law against using your faulty concept of the NT to blind yourself to unChristian OT realities.  There's also no law preventing toddlers from dumping a full bowl of cereal on their face and thinking this is the proper way to relieve hunger.

As God is necessary for all else to exist, so are the Laws of Logic. They are merely a reflection of His Being, and they permeate all of His creation.

No, that's the fallacy of begging the question.  Your answer is already presupposing the validity of logic, when in fact you are supposed to be independently accounting for logic itself.  Either break the circle by giving a non-logical answer, or admit that you cannot answer the question of why logic exists, without committing the fallacy of begging the question.

Both the atheist and the theist agree something is eternal, uncaused and necessary.

yup, the universe.

But when the atheist says the Laws of Logic “simply exist”, he’s begging the question; he’s not providing an explanation for the eternal, uncaused and necessary existence of the laws (saying they exist does not provide us with an explanation for their existence).

 That's your fault for asking us to give a logical answer to the question of where logic comes from.  Your asking of such question is the problem, since what you ask cannot be answered without begging the question, which means the problem is with the person formulating the question.  Any question that requires your answer to take the form of a logical fallacy, is therefore a fallacious question. 

When you blame God for logic, you say so with words that conform to the laws of logic...hence, begging the validity of the very logic that you are pretending to provide an independent accounting for.

Theists, on the other hand, can make a case for God’s existence from a number of evidential lines, providing a reasonable foundation from which logical absolutes can then be elucidated.

 Your case for theism sucks, as I've shown repeatedly at this blog.  While god might be one explanation for what you perceive to be intelligent design, he isn't the only explanation, and by god being so complex himself, Ocaam's Razor would counsel that the god-explanation is less likely than any other.

In addition, atheism fails to explain how the Laws of Logic can be eternal and uncaused and what role they play in causing all other contingent realities.

That's your fault.  If you correctly realized that logic is axiomatic, you'd understand why it is stupid and illogical to even ask why logic exists. Axioms are not subject to analysis.  If they were, they wouldn't be "axioms".

Theism, on the other hand, accounts for the existence of the Laws of Logic by pointing to the existence of an omniscient and omnipotent uncaused, first cause possessing perfect rationality (by virtue of His limitless power) who also acts as the first cause of all other dependent (contingent) creations.

Sorry, Wallace, but you are preaching to a narrow choir, there are plenty of Christian scholars who deny the bible-gods omniscience and omnipotence.  You need to stop talking all bigoted like that if you wish to take on atheists. They are not going to shove aside every other viable Christian interpretation of the bible and "just" allow your blind assumption of classical theism to slide by without criticism. God's imperfection is clear from Genesis 6:6-7.  The entire chapter is believed by classical theist Christians to be describing literal history, so there's no contextual justification to pretend that this particular passage therein is an "anthropomorphism" or something other than literal language.  And the original recipients of that story certainly wouldn't have had systematic theology or bible inerrancy on the brain, so they more than likely took the claim at face value, without trifling about semantics the way an inerrantist or jailhouse lawyer would.  So the passage is reasonably understood to be literal, and thus, God's regretting his own prior decision to create man is a strong indication of his imperfection.  Did he know from all eternity that he would regret creating man?  If God does things he knows he will regret, he has more in common with the impulsive teenager than he has with intelligence.

Objection:

Aren’t the “Laws of Logic” simply the result of observations we make of the world in which we live? We discovered the Laws of Physics from our observations of the natural world; can’t we discover the Laws of Logic in a similar way?

I've deleted your answer here because I'm one of those atheists who doesn't account for logic that way.


Your argument to God from logic does precisely nothing to intellectually obligate the atheist to admit God's existence.  You would have glorified your god more had you simply quoted the bible.  Going beyond what is written is dangerous, and the devil can make you think your intellect is sufficient to fill up the theological gaps left by your bible.  Don't be stupid.

Cold Case Christianity: The Laws of Logic do not prove god's existence

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

Cold Case Christianity: Is God Real? Evidence from the Laws of Logic  

Posted: 09 Jan 2019 01:13 AM PST

Most of us don’t think much about the physical or non-physical laws of the universe necessary for us to exist (and make sense of our existence). As an example, we usually take the law of gravity for granted; it doesn’t really matter how the law operates or what forces lie behind it. We simply accept the fact we live in a world where gravity is a reality. In a similar way, there are many conceptual laws we also take for granted. These abstract truths order our world and guide our exploration and experience. One area of conceptual truth involves a body of concepts we call the Laws of Logic. Is God real? The existence of the Laws of Logic may provide us with an answer.

All rational discussions (even those about the existence or non-existence of God) require the prior foundation of logical absolutes. You’d have a hard time making sense of any conversation if the Laws of Logic weren’t available to guide the discussion and provide rational boundaries. Here are three of the most important Laws of Logic you and I use every day:

That's precisely why logic is "axiomatic", and if you know what axioms are, then you recognize that they are exempt from the question of origins. That's why "where did logic come from" is an invalid question, despite how appealing it is to Christian apologists.

The Law of Identity

Things “are” what they “are”. “A” is “A”. Each thing is the same with itself and different from another. By this it is meant that each thing (be it a universal or a particular) is composed of its own unique set of characteristic qualities or features.

The Law of Non-Contradiction

“A” cannot be both “A” and “Non-A” at the same time, in the same way and in the same sense. Contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time.

The Law of Excluded Middle

A statement is either true or false. For any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is true. There is no middle position. For example, the claim that “A statement is either true or false” is either true or false.

These logical rules are necessary in order for us to examine truth statements. We also need them to point out when someone is reasoning illogically. We use the Laws of Logic all the time; you couldn’t even begin to read or reason through this blog post if you didn’t employ these laws. In fact, you’ve never had an intelligent, rational conversation without using these laws. They’re not a matter of subjective opinion; they are, instead, objectively true. So, here’s an important question: “From where do the transcendent, objective laws of logic come?”

My answer to that question could not be serious unless it already presupposed the validity of the very logic that the answer is supposed to be accounting for.  So asking where logic comes from, constitutes the logical fallacy of begging the question.  All questions that require the answer to commit a logical fallacy, are illegitimate questions.  Dismissed.  Next?

As an atheist, I would have been the first to describe myself as rational. In fact, I saw myself as far more reasonable than many of the Christians I knew. But, I was basing my rationality on my ability to understand and employ the Laws of Logic. How could I account for these transcendent laws without the existence of a transcendent Law Giver?

 See above, logic is axiomatic.  There is no such thing accounting for axioms, anymore than there is sense in asking where god came from.  In the ladder of reasoning, there is going to be an absolute first rung, and because it is first, there is no "where did it come from" to discuss in the first place.  It's just there.  But because most people are constantly bombarded with derivative things that originated from something else babies, clouds, pizza, cars, bibles) they are deceived into thinking that anything we can choose to discuss, surely "came from" somewhere.  Not so.  There are brute truths, which by their nature JUST ARE.

But to the average person, that something "just exists" without an origin point, being contrary to their daily experience, it is almost impossible to accept that anything outside their "god" fairy tale could just exist as a brute truth.  Welcome to the real world.

I have deleted the rest of Wallace's argument because the above conclusively shows the fallacy of trying to account for the laws of logic.  One could avoid the questoin-begging problem by giving a non-logical account for the laws of logic, but by solving that problem you create another:  if your answer is in fact, non-logical, only a fool would waste his time trying to 'seriously' consider its merits.

Therefore the laws of logic, being exempt from questions about why they exist, therefore do not express or imply "god".  As soon as you ask somebody to account for the laws of logic, you are asking them to either give a non-logical answer, or to beg the question of logic's validity. 

Now tell yourself God's ways are mysterious so you can feel better about how "accountable" atheists really are to your invisible nothing in the sky.

The email about J.P. Holding I recently cc'd to many Indonesian churches and others

Beware of heretic James Patrick Holding, former president of Apologetics Afield 

Hello,

I am concerned that you don't know about the on-going ceaseless and egregious sins of somebody that might be trying to gain a leadership position of some sort at your church.  I'm also concerned to make sure my name is not further libeled or defamed by somebody trying to gain a position of leadership with you.  This email was sent to you in my attempt to, at least partially, mitigate the damages this man presently continues to inflict on my reputation.

This man claims to be an "apologist" and is seeking to partner with "Indonesian" churches of the Philadelphia and Los Angeles areas.

However, he doesn't specify which exact churches, so in my effort to obey Matthew 18 and tell his sins to the entire church, I had to collect many email addresses that are associated with Indonesian churches in Los Angeles and in Philadelphia, to make sure the specific churches this man is trying to deceive, will be properly notified.

This man is also an author of articles in the Christian Research Journal, which seems to indicate he has also hoodwinked Christian Research Institute...or...they know about all this and simply don't think slander constitutes sin.  This email is being cc'd to other non-Indonesian persons because they already know some of the history.

Everything I say about this man in this email, and in the attached libel lawsuit, and at my blog, linked below, are factual truths, not opinion or satire.  This is neither spam nor a joke.  I am quite aware Mr. Holding will try to use this email against me the next time I sue him for libel, so I would hardly have cc'd this to him, as I've done, if I was afraid that anything I allege herein is baseless, misleading, or otherwise libelous/defamatory.  It is all truthful fact.

This man is biblically disqualified, due to his extensive sins and unwillingness to cease those sins, from holding any office of Christian "teacher" to any degree whatsoever, at least among the conservative evangelical churches he aligns himself with.

His name is James Patrick Holding, formerly "Robert Turkel".  Before he dissolved the corporation, his ministry was called "Apologetics Afield".

I have a problem with you people donating money to this person for his "services" of "apologetics", while being ignorant that he is beset with many presently on-going sins that he has no intentions of ceasing.  Unless you think Christian teachers have no obligation to walk in the light, read on.

Mr. Holding has been slandering and reviling me for years.  The bible obviously identifies slander as sin,

 17 "Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated?
 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; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man."
 (Matt. 15:17-20 NAU)

and apostle Paul requires the church to disfellowship the brother who engages in "reviling" (i.e., slander).

 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)

Mr Holding has defamed me so much that I had to file two libel lawsuits against him. The attached pdf, is the latest lawsuit I filed against him.  You will more than likely be shocked at his foul language, his need to use language making him sound like a closet-homosexual, and his pathological need to slander anybody and everybody he disagrees with.

Mr. Holding escaped having to answer the first lawsuit on the merits, with the artifice of "lack of jurisdiction".  He then escaped having to answer the second lawsuit because the judge incorrectly held that I lacked standing to sue. Since these two lucky wins, Mr. Holding feels himself utterly unaccountable for his sins of slander, which he continued to commit even after he narrowly escaped the first two lawsuits.  There is literally no reasoning with this scoundrel whatsoever.

I've informed Mr. Holding about a year ago I'd be filing a third libel lawsuit against him.  Not only did he continue libeling me, he began to libel and slander me even more.  Telling this man to stop committing the sin of slander not only accomplishes nothing, it makes the situation worse by inciting him to commit those sins with greater frequency and intensity.  Worse, Mr. Holding likely realizes this third lawsuit will be litigated all the way into jury trial, costing him at least $50,000 in legal fees, money that he likely doesn't have...yet he absolutely will not stop slandering me in ways that constitute "libel" under American law, despite my numerous attempts to settle these matters with him out of court.

Matthew 18 requires those aware of a brother's sin to confront him privately and then do so again with witnesses to get him to repent.

I have already tried this, multiple times, and not only does he not listen, he rebuffs those attempts as foolish.  He insists he is not sinning, despite the fact that his lies about me including falsely accusing me of crimes I've never committed.

He never never expressed or even implied the least bit of genuine remorse or sorrow for these sins, and he has never apologized to me, ever.   This man seems to have some sort of demon that causes him to mistake the sin of slander for holy rebuke.  I don't see anything wrong with holy rebuke.  But that's a far cry from this man's many sins of "bearing false witness".

So now I must tell his sin to the entire church, as the third step in the Matthew 18 disfellowshipping process:

 15 "If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
 16 "But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED.
 17 "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
 (Matt. 18:15-17 NAU)

This man's unbelievably filthy mouth and pathological need to slander anybody he disagrees with,  is extensively documented at my blog too,

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

There, I document Mr. Holding's great sinfulness in detail.  No fool would think this homosexual scoundrel was even remotely qualified to be a "teacher" in the conservative evangelical churches he doctrinally aligns himself with, all of whom think slander is sin, all of whom think homosexuality is a sin.

I would hope you would agree with me that this man's continuing sins need to cease, and he needs to show genuine remorse for them, and he needs to make just and fair reparations to me for all the reputation-damages and emotional distress he has inflicted on me,  before you can consider him to be biblically qualified to hold any office of Christian "teacher".

And he who spreads slander is a fool. (Prov. 10:18)Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment. (James 3:1)

If you wish to contact him about this matter, Holding's email address is

jphold@att.net

All I ask is that you first obtain his confession of these sins, and that you are satisfied he exhibits genuine repentance over them and that you are satisfied he has made some type of reparation to me for these libels, before you start giving him money.  he doesn't use your money merely for his ministry, he also uses to post defamatory cartoon videos about me to his juvenile delinquent YouTube channel, 

Sincerely,

Christian Doscher

barryjoneswhat@gmail.com

James Patrick Holding is likely partnering with City Blessing Church

 Since Mr. Holding appears to care about ceasing to slander me about as much as a hungry alligator wishes to walk away from a fresh kill, I post the following in the effort to mitigate the reputation damage I endure or will likely endure.  I  have good reason to believe I discovered the identity of the Indonesian church that Holding is trying to sell his dogshit apologetics to, so it only makes sense that I reveal that here and then supply them with comprehensive reasons to take whatever Holding says about me, with a few barrels of salt.

James Patrick Holding tells about his attempts to interest another church is his apologetics bullshit, but for unknown reasons, refuses to tell the reader the identity of that other church. 

  In 2018, we have two missions afield planned.   
The first will be to a church in Philadelphia which is the church home for immigrants from Indonesia. I already have a link to the parent organization of this church, and I regularly attend the branch church in the Orlando area.

 see here.

He is, again, questionably ambiguous about exactly through whom he partners so that donations to him become tax-deductible:

 The first will be to a church in Atlanta which is the church home for immigrants from Indonesia. Yes, this is associated with the same parent organization of the branch church I regularly attend in the Orlando area. I am making the rounds, so to speak, as a prelude to a planned trip to Indonesia itself.
...All donations are tax-deductible, though as I noted in my ministry manifesto, I will now be working through third party organizations rather than one of my own. You will receive a receipt from that third party organization I am working with.

see here.


The only Indonesian church I could find in the Orlando area, that had any hope of being the one Holding was talking about, was the City Blessing Church, pastored by Freddy Liwang, see here.  If you wish to warn those church leaders away from Holding, their email addresses, which I gleaned from their publicly acessible websites, are

Fredy Liwang 

fliwang@gmail.com

Orlando, FL
1450 Citrus Oaks Gotha, Fl 34734

Janto Djajaputra
jantoiren@netzero.net

Steve Efendik
stefanusefendik@gmail.com

---------------------------------

This is a message to City Blessing Church
or whatever Indonesian church Holding attends:

Holding has an extremely serious pathological desire to commit the sin of slander against me, a sin that has been in full force since long before 2015, and all such sins of which I have fully documented both at this blog, and in the two libel lawsuits I filed against him in the past, which you can access here.


The two documents from that link that would most extensively record Mr. Holding's libels are:

• 01 - State Lawsuit, Doscher v. Holding,    and even more extensively, 
• 11 - Federal lawsuit, Doscher v. Holding

The next problem is that Mr. Holding has never expressed or implied that he has any genuine remorse for his many sins of slander in both past and present.  That is, not only does he engage in this sin with impunity, but he is so horrifically ignorant, he doesn't recognize the act to be sin, he actually thinks it is holy and good (!?)

What would you think of a Christian apologist who thought committing adultery was a sign of spiritual maturity?  Would you donate to his dogshit ministry?  Not likely, some things simply aren't open for debate?

Indeed, Mr. Holding is so sick-headed with his own pathological narcissism (i.e., the only people who "follow" him are other like-minded juvenile delinquents who mistake his self-gloating defamatory cartoon videos for serious scholarly substance/spiritual maturity, while actual serious scholars who previously publicly supported him, have withdrawn that support for obvious reasons), he actually thinks that his filthy slanders and false accusations against his critics constitute spiritually mature conduct.

He certainly isn't going to say the conduct he's been engaging in for 20 years shows spiritual immaturity, so he doesn't have a lot of room to trifle about the significance of the trail of verbal garbage he has left behind in his sinful tirades, which otherwise is about the only thing that he is "famous" for.

Mr. Holding is also a hypocrite; you don't find him saying filthy things or slandering others when he is authoring articles for other Christian organizations such as Christian Research Institute.  And despite his strong belief in the spiritual goodness of insult, he never even once insulted atheist Richard Carrier during their live debate in 2011.  Maybe Holding's bible has a verse that says namecalling is only allowed to be done over the internet?

This man continues to libel me presently on youtube and other websites, almost as if his escaping having to answer the merits of the prior two libel lawsuits (though technicalities) somehow emboldened him to think he was absolutely immune to any possible libel suit.

Search "turchisrong" and "James Patrick Holding" on google, and you will see all of my extensive documentation here that Mr. Holding is a closet-homosexual, is disowned by his own favorite scholars, and because his violations of Ephesians 5:4 and Colossians 3:8 are deliberate and willful, he is disqualified from holding any type of "teaching" position in any "Christian" church.

It is not without good reason that James 3:1 discourages most Christians from becoming "teachers".

 Even if you aren't a "bible scholar", do you really need to be told that there are ZERO legitimately credentialed evangelical Christian scholars who agree with Holding's absurd view that Jesus wants his followers to go around slandering their critics?

Mike Licona and Gary Habermas strongly advise Christians against slander, as I've documented.  See here.

Craig Blomberg agrees, as I've documented.  See here.

Plenty of legitimately credentialed Christian scholars agree, as I've documented, see here.

Back in 2008, the one scholar that Mr. Holding depended on the most to justify saying the bible authorizes today's Christians to insult and belittle their critics (Dr. Richard Rohrbaugh) made perfectly clear, after analyzing a sample of Mr. Holding's gratuitously insulting language toward me, that Mr. Holding

• gives Christianity a bad name
• does not deserve to be given the time of day
• is a boor with no manners, and 
• sounds like somebody in serious need of psychological help.  

See my 2008 post here.

In 2015, Dr. Rohrbaugh cursorily reviewed Mr. Holding's most definitive article in defense of name-calling and slander (an article that quoted Rohrbaugh), and said it was an "obvious perversion" of Rohrbaugh's own work, a perversion of all Context Group work, a perversion of the entire New Testament, and was so bad, he did not even deem the article worthy of any response.  See here (search for "obvious perversion" to quickly locate Rohrbaugh's actual comment).

 In short, Mr. Holding's sin of slander arises from his absurd interpretation of the bible, i.e., that the bible authorizes today's Christian to hurl abusive shaming insults and epithets at anybody whom they disagree with.  It also arises from his genetics, since most mature responsible adults do not consistently manifest a pathological need to constantly spread factually and legally false information about other people.  If you cannot condemn a dog for barking...

I have never falsely accused Mr. Holding, he really is a slanderer and closet homosexual.  But he is also too chickenshit to debate me in a true scholarly way.

His idea of "debate" is to upload defamatory cartoon videos to YouTube, wait for me to make my own reply here, so he can then post another reply-video there.  Mr. Holding would rather die than actually confront me in a real-time debate.  But he is going to endure it anyway because I'm going to be suing him again for libel per se, and I'll be taking a full deposition of him as we both sit at the same table, with video camera and court reporter recording everything, with intent to use Mr. Holding's answers to impeach his credibility at trial.

(Oh, did I mention?  Mr. Holding's current libels against me are occurring after he spent $21,000 in legal fees to get my prior libels lawsuits dismissed.  Normally somebody getting that lucky would "learn the lesson", but Mr. Holding has misconstrued his two lucky wins as a sign that God wants him to continue telling defamatory lies about me to the world at large.  How's that for pathological obstinacy?)

And even if his name-calling were biblically justified, he would still be guilty of sin:  the bible obviously requires Christians to refrain from falsely accusing others.  Mr.  Holding has not merely called me names, he has slandered and reviled me, numerous times as my documentation shows, supra.

Now what?  Maybe Holding will have a vision of God and suddenly discover that there are times when falsely accusing another person can possibly be good and holy?

No, the bible forbids any such foolishness:

...it's one of the 10 commandments, so perhaps Holding just never knew this was in the bible?

 16 "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. (Exod. 20:16 NAU)

Gee, I don't live next door to Holding, so maybe he is thus free to falsely accuse me?

Moses elsewhere specified you shall show no mercy to the one who has falsely accused another:

 16 "If a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing,
 17 then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days.
 18 "The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely,
 19 then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.
 20 "The rest will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such an evil thing among you.
 21 "Thus you shall not show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. (Deut. 19:16-21 NAU)

 John the Baptist condemned those who falsely accuse others:

14 Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, "And what about us, what shall we do?" And he said to them, "Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages." (Lk. 3:14 NAU)

Jesus condemned anyone who committed "slander":

 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; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man." (Matt. 15:18-20 NAU)

 Apostle Paul demanded that you disfellowship or excommunicate any so-called "Christian brother" who engages in the sin of reviling (i.e., slander):

 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)

Paul also believed that the sins of abusive speech, slander and coarse jesting, sins that are abundant in Mr. Holding's "apologetics", are the reason why God's wrath continues to abide on many:

 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;
 2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
 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.
 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
 7 Therefore do not be partakers with them; (Eph. 5:1-7 NAU)

 5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
 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. 3:5-10 NAU)

Holding's filthy jesting toward his critics are also some of his sins which I've extensively documented, here.

Holding's prior sins of slander include characterizing his critics as having giant penises which they use to hit other people in the head with.  See here, and search for "pee".

Christian apologist Steve Hays in 2005 accused Holding of having an unsavory attraction to homoerotic terms.  In 2016 Hays tried to pretend that these words of his were mere satire or otherwise "just kidding", but I proved Hays to be a first-rate liar, with an examination of the full context of that 2005 post.  See here.

See my own study of the Greek terms at issue in Paul's condemnation of slander and libel, here.
(search for the phrase "NT ethical principles would demand that these things arguably legitimately question whether he is "saved" at all")

Apostle Peter condemns slander:

 1 Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander,
 2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, (1 Pet. 2:1-2 NAU)

 And he who spreads slander is a fool. (Prov. 10:18 NAU)

If you have any specific questions, for example, you aren't quite sure just yet whether the bible's prohibitions on false accusations are absolute, I'll be happy to answer them here, or in private email, barryjoneswhat@gmailcom.