James Patrick Holding has committed perjury at least 10 times

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

Update February 9, 2021:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

I offer more here.  And here.  And here.

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

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

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

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

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

Barry Jones

2 hours ago

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

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

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

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

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

 Barry Jones

30 minutes ago

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Barry Jones

16 minutes ago

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

I reply:

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

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

I reply:

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

You said:

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

I reply:

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

You said:

 Does he even have a reputation to speak of?

  

I reply:

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

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

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

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

Barry Jones

6 minutes ago

@Zachary Cawley You said:

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

I reply:

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

Answering Jason Engwer's questions on why skeptics distrust Acts

Jason Engwer of Triablogue posted to Facebook a few questions intended to rationally justify his acceptance of the reports in Acts about apostle Paul's experience of Christ on the road to Damascus.

See here

I respond to each question respectively, showing that skeptics can answer those questions in a way that renders their continued distrust of Acts and Luke reasonable.

Jason EngwerMarch 29 ·

Some of the reasons we have for accepting what Acts tells us about Jesus' resurrection appearance to Paul:
- There's no competing account.

Most modern day "miracles" have no competing account, yet despite their allegedly involving the Christian god, you do not automatically trust them.  Or is that granting you too much?

- Luke's general reliability.

No, the only reason he made sure to get the names of cities and people correct was to make his lies about miracles seem more believable.  All professional liars realize the obvious truth that if you want to make a lie seem convincing, you have to surround it with nuggets of historical truth.  And there is no rule of historiography that requires a person to believe a report or testimony until it can be proven false.  Josh McDowell lied about Aristotle's dictum.

Engwer will carp that anti-supernaturalism is fallacious, but not even he or anybody at Triablogue would believe biblical miracle claims if they were made by people today.  Suppose your single female pregnant neighbor says no man got her pregnant, it was only god, just like with Mary in the gospels.  You know god-damn well you'd be immediately suspicious, would you NOT robotically remain neutral so you could gather the evidence and weigh hypotheses.  Go fuck yourself, you trifling self-deceived liar.

- Why fabricate an account in which Paul's companions don't convert?

It makes Paul look more special and unique.  And his companions more than likely didn't convert, so saying they did carried a risk of being falsified.  And the fact that the companions are utterly unknown and disappear forever from history reasonably justifies the conclusion that if they ever existed, they actually didn't convert...which means they likely did not believe Paul was telling the truth that the experience was Jesus.

- Why fabricate an account in which Paul's companions don't see the risen Christ and don't hear all that was said?

See above.  Why would Mel Tari fabricate tales of Christians walking on water, fire falling from heaven..."

- Why not make the physicality of the appearance more obvious, as with earlier resurrection appearances, like the earlier ones in Luke and Acts?

Because Paul was an absurd mystic who liked the idea of quasi-dimensional nonsense that left him stymied as to what exactly happened and how, such as his experience of flying up in heaven, but being unable years later to tell whether it happened physically or spiritually:

 1 Boasting is necessary, though it is not profitable; but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.
 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago-- whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows-- such a man was caught up to the third heaven.
 3 And I know how such a man-- whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows--
 4 was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak. (2 Cor. 12:1-4 NAU)

And of course, you know that Paul boasted of manifesting the nonsensical gift of tongues more than the Corinthian church, 1st Corinthians 14:18.  So Paul thought talking to himself in a language his mind could not understand constituted his talking to 'god'. 14:14.  He also thought that the time it took for all Christians to float up in the air and be with Jesus would be no longer than the time it takes to blink.  15:52.

- Why make the events so complicated (as discussed above)?

Its hard to juggle the desire to look special, along with the desire to tell a convincing story about a quasi-dimensional event.  Maybe you should interview a few lying eyewitnesses, who could have lied in court in a less complex way than they did?

Finally, Engwer and all Christian apologists routinely overlook the fact that the bible itself denies that the doing of a miracle automatically means the wonder-worker's theology is approved of by God, it also says God might give a false prophet the ability to do a miracle, merely to test the people:

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

So even if skeptics granted that Luke was telling the truth about Paul's experience of Christ on the road to Damascus, the fact of the miracle does not mean "Christians 1, Skeptics 0".

By what criteria can a person tell when the theology of a miracle-worker is divinely approved, and when the theology of a miracle-worker is merely a test from God?  Engwer cannot answer this in any objective fashion (what's he gonna say?  Jesus and Paul were nice people?), and therefore, skeptics would remain reasonable to be completely apathetic toward Jesus and Paul even if the skeptics acknowledged that they did genuinely supernatural miracles.

And if Engwer came up with any such criteria, that would be stupid since, what?  Are we supposed to apply that test to the wonder-workers in various Christian denominations to figure out which one is right?  How could we have time to conduct our lives if we were investigating miracle claims like that?

Or will Engwer cite Matthew 19:29 and insist the only rational thing to do is to give up custody of our kids so that we can have more time to obsess about Jesus?  LOL

TRIABLOGUE HAS DONE NOTHING IN 15 YEARS TO REMOTELY JUSTIFY CALLING SKEPTICS FOOLS.  IF YOU THINK THEY HAVE, I'LL GLADLY DISCUSS IT WITH YOU IN ANY INTERNET FORUM OF YOUR CHOOSING. RESPOND HERE OR AT barryjoneswhat@gmail.com

My justification of resurrection skepticism to Lydia McGrew

This is my reply to a recent video wherein Lydia McGrew and others discuss the evidence for Jesus' resurrection:

from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06NtOP84rXo&app=desktop

Most Christian scholars say Mark was the earliest gospel. Most Christian scholars say authentic Mark ended at 16:8. If it be reasonable for anybody to adopt the Christian scholarly majority opinion, then it is going to be reasonable for anybody to conclude that the earliest form of the gospel did not mention Jesus actually appearing to anybody. The reasonableness of that position is not going to disappear just because Lydia doesn't agree with Markan Priority. Reasonableness doesn't require accuracy (you think jurors are always unreasonable if they convict an innocent man?), and reasonableness doesn't require that somebody bat out of the ballpark any other theory that disagrees with them.

Hence, skeptics can be "reasonable", even if not infallible, to conclude the resurrection appearance narratives of later gospels are legendary. Read Acts 21:18-24 before you tell me rumors take decades to take root. If we can be 'reasonable' to be skeptical, how could there possibly be any intellectual compulsion on us to worry about that scholar over there, and her disagreements with us?

Do you think Christians stop being reasonable if they know about some skeptic and they refuse to entertain his replies? No.

Then be consistent with your own logic, and stop saying skeptics cannot be reasonable unless they are willing to stay up with the latest in Christian apologetics trifles.

*You* don't have to answer every last skeptical trifle to be a reasonable Christian, and *I* don't have to answer every last Christian trifle to be a a reasonable skeptic of Jesus' resurrection.

Is that fair, yes or no?

screenshot:

Triablogue: Dividing up Christianity is just as easy as we suggested

This is my reply to a Triablogue article by Jason Engwer entitled:

Dividing Up Early Christianity Is More Difficult Than Often Suggested

It's common for people commenting on Easter issues, as well as issues in other contexts, to put one strand of early Christianity against another. They'll claim that a particular belief is found in one gospel, but not another. The Pauline letters have one view of a subject, but a contrary view is found in the gospels.

They are correct.  Apostle Paul taught that righteousness doesn't come from the Law.  Galatians 2:21.  But Jesus not only taught that it does (the context for Matthew 5:17-20 is not "imputed righteousness" but v. 21 ff, which make actual personal righteousness a requirement for salvation), but that anything he taught the original apostles is also required of all future Gentiles, see Matthew 28:20, the part of the Great Commission most Christians miss.  If that is true, then because Jesus ordered the apostles to obey the Pharisee's commands (Matthew 23:3), Matthew also thought the risen Christ required the same of Gentiles. 

And that's how you prove Matthew was one of the Judaizers that Paul cursed in Galatians 1:8. 

And so on. In the context of Easter, we'll be told that Paul had no concept of the empty tomb

Making me wonder what you do with skeptics like me, whose arguments against the empty tomb are far more powerful than that.  1st Corinthians 15 is too convoluted to bother with, and any idiot who believed what you think Paul believed, could have expressed himself more clearly on the point.  Had Paul any concern for the historical Jesus, which he didn't, he could have appealed to the resurrection of Lazarus, and that would have made things as clear as Jesus wanted.  Adding apostle Paul to your Christianity is like getting married to a mentally retarded criminal.  You have to be sick in the head to do it.

or that some portions of early Christianity believed in a form of resurrection that didn't involve the transformation of the body that died, for example.

Ever read 2nd John 1:7?  How could the 1st century gnostic Christians possibly believe in a bodily resurrected Christ, when they asserted that his pre-resurrection body was illusory?   And there you go, a first century group of Christians who saw nothing particularly compelling with the "bodily resurrection" hypothesis.  Hell, even Paul's churches included people who denied resurrection outright (1st Cor. 15:12).

One of the points that ought to be made in these contexts is that the alleged differing strands of early Christianity often express agreement with one another. On the resurrection, Paul refers to how he and the rest of the apostles were in agreement (1 Corinthians 15:11).

FAIL.  That is only Paul alleging that the other apostles experienced things similar to himself.  A quick analysis will reveal serious problems justifying skepticism toward Paul's testimony here:

 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;
 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles;
 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. (1 Cor. 15:3-8 NAU)

Paul's list was intended to convey the notion of chronological progression, therefore the appearance to Cephas was first.  But assuming the gospel of Mark really is the written form of Peter's preaching as some church fathers alleged, sure is strange that Peter (assuming he is the same as Cephas) didn't mention his own experience of the risen Christ (didn't the apostles value eyewitness testimony as much as Triablogue does?  If the apostles didn't find it necessary to write 6,000 articles addressing every possible trifle against theiir faith, Triablogue will have to admit there is a serious probability that it's sin of word-wrangling truly does signify a lack of sanctification.  A true Christian cares more about walking in the light, and less about "my arguments are still powerful whether I live in sin or not"). 

It's more strange if Peter did give his testimony and Mark somehow didn't think that part sufficiently important to justify mentioning despite the fact that Peter was the source, and the resurrection of Jesus the capstone of the gospel.  Your conjured up possible scenarios (Maybe mark forgot, maybe this, maybe that) will never be powerful enough to render my skepticism at this point unreasonable. Even stranger, even assuming Mark's long ending is canonical, there is no appearance to Peter there either.  We are fully justified to say the gospels don't mention any appearance to Peter before an appearance to the 12, because the gospel authors did not know of any such appearances, not because they were knowingly suppressing relevant testimony.  They already had a hard case to prove, they would likely regard ALL resurrection testimony, which they viewed as reliable, to be indispensable.  So skepticism toward Paul's resurrection summary is justified.  Contrary to popular belief, skepticism doesn't need to be founded on absolutes anymore than Christian faith does.

The appearance to 500 brothers at one time is recorded nowhere else in the NT, and worse, there can be no intellectual constraint on the skeptic to admit that testimony, since you don't know whether Paul says such a thing based on his own personal knowledge, or if he is conveying hearsay, or if he simply made it up in the typical fashion of Semitic exaggeration, which Flannagan and Copan tell us was the case with the "kill'em all" passages in the OT.

There is no appearance to 'James' in any of the gospels, except of course the Gospel to the Hebrews...wanna go there?  I didn't think so.  Like the atheist who has already decided that miracles are impossible, YOU have already decided that the Gospel to the Hebrews is not worthy of being taken seriously, since you aren't stupid enough to open epistemological doors you'll never close again.  Welcome to the club of smug presuppositionalism.  Maybe God wants you to do something else in life beside spend his money resurrecting demon inspired events for posterity, you fuckin fool.

Paul's using the same word for "appear" (Greek: horao) for all the listed appearances including to himself was dishonest, since the most explicit NT stories about Jesus appearing to Paul, neither express nor imply that he was an "eyewitness" in the sense that the gospels portray the Christ-appearances to the other apostles.  Go ahead, read Acts 9, Acts 22 and Acts 26.  Let me know when you find anything saying Paul saw anything more than a "light from heaven".  I also answered Steve Hays' trifles about the historicity of Paul's Damascus road experience, here.  Paul was NOT an "eyewitness" of the risen Christ.  And it wouldn't matter if he was, the apostolic test for apostleship is not "did you see the risen Christ?" but "were you present among Jesus' followers from the beginning of his earthly ministry"? (Acts 1:21).  You'll excuse me if I reject Paul's criteria of apostleship in favor of Peter's.  Feel free to join J. Vernon McGee in accusing Peter and the church in Acts 1 of defying the will of God, but don't say so publicly, you're liable to get steamrolled with details in Acts 1 you've shut your eyes to.

On the other hand, a theory that Paul wasn't being dishonest in 1st Cor. 15 would require that the manner in which Paul experienced Jesus on the road to Damascus is the way Paul thought the apostles experienced Jesus, which is bad news for you, given the nonsensical "Jesus-was-there-but-didn't-allow-anybody-to-see-him-except-Paul" absurdity, the likes of which would get any case based on similar nonsense tossed out of court, the the Plaintiff sued for filing a frivolous claim.  The reasonableness of the skeptical alternatives is not going to disappear merely because you can trifle about this or that.

To cite another example, see here regarding the likely reference to Luke's gospel as scripture in 1 Timothy 5:18.

Don't forget to tell them that some inerrantist Christian scholars deny the connection:

  It is not likely that Paul was quoting the Gospel of Luke, a document whose date of writing is uncertain. Paul may have been referring to a collection of Jesus’ sayings, some of which appear in Luke’s Gospel.
Lea, T. D., & Griffin, H. P. (2001, c1992). Vol. 34: 1, 2 Timothy, Titus (electronic ed.). The New American Commentary (Page 156). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

But I'm sure that Jason Engwer will still "expect" spiritually dead skeptics to successfully navigate the disputes that conservative inerrantist Christian scholars have with each other.  To think anything else is to give them excuse to deny God, and Romans 1:20 must be upheld to the death, amen?

Paul's letters are referred to as scripture in 2 Peter 3:15-16.

You say nothing here that might intellectually obligate a non-Christian to agree.

An example cited less often, but which has a lot of significance, is the early patristic attestation of how highly John viewed the Synoptic gospels.

Matthew made Jesus into a Judaizer (23:3, 28:20), yet John's gospel nowhere expresses or implies that Gentiles must obey the Pharisees.  Perhaps somebody can have high regard for an author, without agreeing with everything that author said?  Just like Jason Engwer has high regard for Steve Hays, while thinking Hays' Calvinism is an absurd misinterpretation of scripture (or did you become a Calvinist since 2015?)

See here concerning what Papias tells us about John's view of the gospel of Mark.

And just forget about  Papias' credibility problems.  You are here to live through your blog, not "convince" anybody of anything.  Also forget about the fact that you cannot demonstrate that any modern person is under the least bit of intellectual or moral obligation to give two shits about ancient hearsay.  So when we refuse to consider it, we aren't breaking any rules of intellectual or moral integrity. 

It sucks to be you because you are doing more to promote the gospel than even your own god!  Don't tell me God works through you, or I will ask why you don't profess to write inerrantly.  Where does the bible say God's inspiration would affect people of the future to a lesser degree than it did the biblical authors?

(And for more about Papias and his relationship with the apostle John, see here.) Clement of Alexandria cited some elders who commented on John's view of the Synoptics. See here for more about that passage.

Wow, I never knew Triablogue put so much stock in ancient hearsay at third-hand.  Jesus' resurrection is as obvious as the existence of trees.  I faint from fear of your god.  Can I borrow some dust and ashes?  Or are you a dispensationalist?

Notice, too, that much of what I'm saying here holds up even if the traditional authorship attributions of the New Testament documents are rejected. I explain some of the reasons why in my article on 1 Timothy 5:18 linked above, and those principles apply to other documents as well, not just 1 Timothy.

How much would Christianity suffer if it could be proven that the modern person is not under the least bit of intellectual compulsion to give two fucks what the 4 gospels say?  Sounds like a reasonable argument for rejecting traditional gospel authorship, which I can easily make and have made numerous times before, disposes of 4 of those resurrection witnesses, in a circumstance where you don't have very many witnesses anyway, and therefore the loss of 4 witnesses could not possibly be trivilaized, unless you are a Pentecostal Calvinist like Steve Hays, who thinks his personal experience of Christ counts for beans in such a debate.

Similarly, even if you think the elder Papias referred to was somebody other than the apostle John, the fact would remain that Papias was highly influenced by the Johannine documents (as I argue in my material linked above), and he held a high view of the Synoptics.

He also held a high view of talking grapes.  Let's just say I don't exactly lose sleep at night wondering whether Papias should still be believed or not despite his credibility problems.   I've rejected him and you haven't given me the slightest reason to worry I might have been wrong.  The difference between you and I is that I'm always open to dialogue and debate; YOU are just a chickenshit cocksucker who carefully avoids explaining why he won't put up or shut up.

For example, I asked you for all the evidence you had on the Enfield Poltergiest that you think God wants you to endless blog about, perhaphs thinking in doing so you are mirroring the apostles.  I'm still waiting.  Perhaps you have a new theory?  Maybe atheists who want to evaluate the same evidence you do, are not "worthy" to be given access?

 You can tell from my debates here that when I'm involved in formal debate, I use nicer language, so don't hide behind the pretext of "foul language".  I'll talk nicer if that's what you demand, you posterboy for masculinity, you.  And if you demand I talk nicer, I'd love to hear you comment on whether James Patrick Holding's use of foul insulting language and slurs for the last 20 years can intellectually justify a person to be suspicious that his claim to salvation is complete bullshit.

Any fool can post endless blog entries about Christian theology, but direct debate is where you find out whether their blog posts are substantive, or just organized noise.

Furthermore, saying that the elder Papias refers to wasn't the apostle John doesn't change the fact that he was some sort of prominent early church leader who didn't write the gospel of Mark and seems to have operated largely outside of the circles that gospel's author is usually associated with, yet he held a high view of that gospel.

An anonymous person held a high view of an anonymous gospel.  Don't make me put my beer down, turn off the stereo and start trembling in fear before your empty sky.

Rejecting something like Pauline authorship of 1 Timothy or the identification of Papias' elder as the apostle John would weaken my argument, but the argument would still carry some weight.

But you'll never establish that there is the least bit of intellectual or moral obligation upon any modern person to so much as CARE what the gospels say in the first place.  I can make a reasonable biblical case that Jesus' warnings about eternal conscious torment contradict the Old Testament, so that there's about as much danger in rejecting the gospel as there is in deleting spam email.

Times are changing, you won't be scaring anybody into heaven if I can help it.   Now tell yourself the Holy Spirit allowed me to post this rebuttal piece because he wants you to think of new creative ways to convince yourself that you can stand up to my debate challenges without needing to actually debate.

Reply to Steve Hays replying to Greg Bahnsen on the resurrection of Jesus

This is my reply to a Triablogue article by Steve Hays entitled:

Is it improper to argue evidentially for the Resurrection?
A friend asked me to comment on an old article by the late Greg Bahnsen:
https://answersingenesis.org/apologetics/the-impropriety-of-evidentially-arguing-for-the-resurrection/

However, a serious difficulty arises when the epistemological significance of the resurrection is separated from its soteriological function. It is correct to hold that God’s raising of Jesus from the dead saves us both from sin and agnosticism, but it would be mistaken to understand by this that the epistemological problem could be handled independently of the (broader) moral problem which is at its base. It is with regret that one notices neo-evangelicals severing the justifying efficacy of Christ’s resurrection from its truth-accrediting function. In reality, the latter is dependent upon the former. Only as Christ’s resurrection (with its ensuing regeneration by the Holy Spirit of Christ) saves a sinner from his rebellion against God and God’s Word, can it properly function to exhibit evidence for God’s truthfulness.

i) The significance of the Resurrection is multifaceted, so it's a question of which facet it is deployed to prove. It has an soteriological value but also evidential value. By raising Jesus from the dead, the Father vindicates the mission of Jesus, confirming who he claims to be. If Jesus was a false prophet, God would leave him to rot in the grave.

Then apparently Steve Hays forgot about that bible verse that says God may allow a false prophet to work genuinely supernatural miracles.  See Deuteronomy 13:1-3.  Apparently, the doing of a real miracle does NOT end the discussion about whether that person's message is what God wants the hearers to accept.

The problem for the Christian apologist at that point is how spiritually dead people are supposed to figure out which workers of genuinely supernatural miracles are approved by God, and which workers of genuinely supernatural miracles are false prophets god is using to test people.  Especially if spiritually alive people such as Catholics and Protestants cannot even agree on whether God has caused Mary to miraculously appear in modern times.

ii) The reversal of death is an overwhelming phenomenon, 

Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead and his turning a few fishes and loaves into enough to feed 5,000 people is also an overwhelming proposition, yet curiously, today's apologists reserve the mighty change in the disciples solely to Jesus' last alleged miracle, his rising from the dead.  What fool would trifle that there is an important difference between watching your messiah friend raise a 4-day dead decomposing corpse back to life, and your messiah friend being alive three days after he died?

ii) Due to common grace, some unbelievers are more reasonable than others. They retain more common sense. 

thanks for supplying me with all I need to justifiably blame god for my inability to see things your way.  I didn't deserve to be born into a sinful human race, but if your god made it happen anyway, then your ideas about what's morally "good" are probably too deranged to suppose you could profit from rebuttal.

Furthermore, since inductive argumentation is dependent upon the premise of uniformity, and since this premise can only be established by a Christian presupposing the truth of Scripture (for Hume’s skepticism has yet to be countered on anything but presuppositional grounds), the “evidentialist’s” argument is really presuppositional at base anyway. The non-Christian has no right to expect regularity in nature and the honest skeptic knows it; so, an inductive argument for the historical resurrection could only have been probative force for one who granted the truth of Christianity already. 

It's true that induction presents a paradox for secular philosophy. 

it's also a paradox for the inerrantist Calvinist who is sure that the stranger's claim of gold fish who audibly testify to the gospel, is false, but who nevertheless cannot absolutely deny that possibility due to his belief that stranger things have happened.

ii) It's true that many atheists raise a classic uncomprehending objection to the Resurrection by laying odds–as if this should be treated the same way as a naturally occurring event. 

It's true that many Calvinists raise a classic uncomprehending objection to the "god made my gold fish speak to me in English" report from the stranger on the bus, by laying odds, as if this should be treated the same way as a naturally occurring event.

i) It's true that there's often not enough common ground between Christians and some unbelievers to make a case for the Resurrection that an unbeliever will find convincing. 

then you disagree with Van Tilian Calvinist Jeff Durbin, who insists that unbelievers are quite sure that Jesus rose from the dead, they just don't wish to admit it because they like to live in rebellion against their creator.

ii) But this also raises the problem of the criterion. Which enjoys priority: criteria or paradigm examples? If you witness a miracle, you don't begin with criteria but with the event itself. 

Then you obviously disagree with Gary Habermas, Mike Licona, William Lane Craig and other evidentialists who start with criteria.  A fracture in the body of Christ likely more significant than whether you all agree that Tabasco sauce tastes great.

iv) I don't think it's necessary or realistic for a Christian apologist to assign odds to the case for the Resurrection. We simply marshall the available evidence. It is what it is. There's no need to conjure up an artificial statistic regarding the degree of probability. 

Then you disagree with all modern historians, including all apologists who defend the resurrection of Jesus in terms of probability, such as Gary Habermas, Mike Licona, and William Lane Craig.  You are horrifically naive, to say that the evidence "is what it is".  Do you need to be told why tautologies never promote the cause of truth?

v) I'd add, as I've mentioned on several occasions, that there's an overemphasize on scrutinizing ancient documentary evidence. While that foundation is indefensible, Christianity is a living religion with a living Savior. Jesus answers prayer. 

Let me know when you find any such case that you think is the most impervious to falsification.

Jesus appears to people. 

Really?  What's your best evidence?  I'm ready to discuss it bit by bit.  Consider yourself challenged to put up or shut up.

Christ’s resurrection does not entail his deity, just as our future resurrection does not entail our divinity! And one could not argue that the first person to rise from the dead is God, for on that basis Lazarus would have greater claim to deity than Christ! The evidentialist may prove the resurrection of Jesus, but until he proves every other point of Christianity, then resurrection is an isolated, irrelevant, “brute” fact which is no aid to our apologetical efforts. Only within the system of Christian logic does the resurrection of Christ have meaning and implication; and that system of logical entailment and premises can only be used on a presuppositional basis-you do not argue into it. 

That's too ambitious and quite artificial. Take the actual eyewitnesses to the Resurrection.

If you could show that anything in the NT comes from "actual eyewitnesses to the Resurrection", you might have a point.

They didn't prove every other point of Christianity to acknowledge and be revolutionized by what they saw. They didn't have to operate within an explicit system of Christian logic.

yes, they did, you are to reject all forms of logic except those which lead to apostle Paul's version of Christianity.  see Colossians 2:8.   True believers do not merely accept the evidence, they have been transformed by the renewing of their mind, Romans 12:2.  And they maintain such belief by automatically avoiding any gainsayer after the second warning, see Titus 3:9-11.

i) But the Scriptures were not enough. Disciples had to actually witness the Risen Lord to be convinced.

But the risen Christ still blesses blind faith.  Ask yourself what "do not see" means in John 20:29.  I suppose the reason John dishonestly placed his own theology in Jesus' mouth was because Jesus stopped appearing to people, and he needed to answer the concerns of converts asking "if Jesus appeared to you, why doesn't he appear to me?"

ii) An apologist has no control over the mindset of the unbeliever. Either God will open the eyes of the unbeliever or not. The duty of an apologist is simply to marshal the evidence that God has put at our disposal and leave the results to God.  Posted by steve at 11:30 AM

Then since you think the bible is best source of information possible, you are making Christianity unnecessarily complex if if you do anything more than quote bible verses to unbelievers to fulfill your apologetics obligation.  Perhaps your desire to go beyond the bible actually signifies you don't seriously think the bible is "sufficient", and you are just deceiving yourself by saying you think the bible is "sufficient".

The sanctification argument for refusing to listen to certain Christian apologists

Here is an argument I posted at another forum.  I argue that despite the fact that many bible scholars are consistently Christian in their faith, their unwillingness to break fellowship with other Christians they know are living in sin, proves that such scholars probably aren't true Christians to begin with.  The internet allows Christians who live in the sin of slander/reviling to run wild with little to zero chance that their local pastor, will ever know, and when the pastor is told, he typically brushes this off without employing the admittedly emotionally difficult disciplinary measures required in Matthew 18 and 1st Corinthians 5:9-13
==============================

In my experience, while some Christian might have a lot of knowledge of bible scholarship, they are often shockingly lacking in sanctification.  I've known really smart Christians who are routine drunks, really smart Christians who routinely engage in pre-marital fornication, etc.  God only knows how many Christian "internet apologists" there are who download pornography while posting defenses of biblical inerrancy to debate forums.

The problem is bigger than just the Christians who "live in sin" as we typically use that phrase.  The problem includes Christian scholars and leaders who exhibit zero motive to fulfill the harder parts of the bible, like obeying Matthew 18 and excommunicating the so-called "brother" who refuses to repent of some sin committed against another. 

For example, many "internet apologists" routinely hurl insults at whoever they are debating.  Apostle Paul told Christians to stop communicating with so-called Christian "brothers" who constantly "revile" other people:

  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)

But how good are the odds that any such sinful Christian's pastor knows about this, and can therefore implement this biblically necessary discipline?

I've witnessed plenty of cases where well-known conservative christian scholars became knowledgeable that one of the Christians they fellowship with routinely "reviles" everybody including other Christians, using language that is in clear violation of Ephesians 5:4 and Colossians 3:8...but these scholars did precisely nothing to address it.  They simply never attempted the least bit of biblical response.

How long can a Christian scholar turn away from the more demanding morals the bible requires of him, before the skeptics can be justified to say such scholar is likely lacking in sanctification?  Does 1st Corinthians 5:11 place a burden upon all Christians, or only on local pastors?

I'd like to know what the Christians here would think of the skeptical argument that says a Christian can be safely deemed to lack salvation, if despite a scholarly-level knowledge of the bible, they carefully refrain from addressing issues of sin in their own lives, or in the lives of other Christians whom they regularly fellowship with.

I'm not saying nobody can be a Christian unless they are sinless.

I'm saying the more you disobey the biblical requirement to reprove sinful brothers and disfellowship the unrepentant, the more the outsider is justified to conclude your lack of sanctification testifies to your lack of salvation. 

Sure, the the bible will allow for the husband who commits adultery to still be a Christian.

But does the bible allow a husband to be a Christian if he has been committing adultery every day of the week for the last 20 years?

So the ultimate question is:  even if the skeptical attack is not infallible, can the attack still be "reasonable" in concluding that where Christian scholars either live constantly in sin, or sheepishly run away from a need to rebuke a sinful brother, this lack of evidence of sanctification increases the odds such Christians are not authentically born again?

No biblical justification to think God lives "outside" of time

I posted this to another forum I participate in:

I don't understand why Christians put so much effort into distinguishing the eternity of heaven from the earth-based sense of temporal progression, as if there were the slightest biblically justified reason to distinguish the two as qualitatively different.

Each and every biblical description of heaven presents events taking place there as if they are just as bound to temporal chronological progression as earth-bound events are.  Servants present themselves to kings on earth, and the sons of God presented themselves before God (Job 1).

Soldiers stand before their king awaiting orders on earth, and god's demons stand before his throne awaiting orders to go make people tell lies.  1st Kings 22:19 ff

The modern Christian belief that heaven is another dimension, is not biblical.  Nothing in the bible remotely expresses or implies that heaven is some other dimension.  Flying in heaven requires wings, which indicates heaven has air (Isaiah 6:1-7).  Such a reference also logically implies gravity in heaven (i.e., the angel would fall down if he tried to fly without wings).

There's fire in heaven (Isaiah 6:6) so the second law of thermodynamics operates there too.  What was on fire was a "coal", which indicates there are sources of fuel in heaven, such as wood.  The reality of the fire logically necessitates that oxygen is in heaven too. 

That beings in heaven are limited to time-bound temporal progression is clear from the departed souls under God's altar, who complain that God is taking too long to mete out his vengeance. Revelation 6:10.

Then there's that verse that absolutel shows heaven to be bound to time, that verse that proves there's no women in heaven.  Rev. 8:1.

Christians are not saving face or winning the debate by conjuring up clever theories to reconcile biblical statements with modern physics.  The priority is not "how can we reconcile this biblical statement with obvious reality?"

The priority is "how did this biblical author intend the reader to understand this phrase?" 

A major rule of hermeneutics is to ask how the originally intended addressees would have understood the passage in question.

Christians have no hope of pretending that such pre-scientific people would have been suspicious that the above-cited passages were mere "accommodations" to the limited mental capacities of sinful man...or that heaven was a different "dimension".  It is perfectly reasonable to take such passages literally, and the only possible motive a Christian could have to insist they are mere cases of phenomenological language is a desire to promote biblical inerrancy, regardless of intellectual cost.

What Christians will never do, in ten lifetimes, is demonstrate that the above-cited skeptical interpretations of such bible verses is "unreasonable".  But if we can be reasonable to interpret those passages literally, the inerrantist is deprived of the intellectual right to insist we give him a hearing.

Perhaps the cherry on top is the Ascension of Jesus in Acts 1.  Skeptics say Jesus did this because he knew heaven was physically "up there".

Inerrantists will say "no, he knew heaven was just a different dimension not attainable by moving in any spatial direction, but he was merely accommodating himself to the false cosmological viewpoint held by his 1st century apostles".

Have fun demonstrating THAT using normative principles of hermeneutics, such as grammar, immediate context, and genre.

Cold Case Christianity: Answering Wallace on miracles

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

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

Posted: 19 Jun 2020 06:15 AM PDT

Why are we so resistant to the notion of miracles?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What presuppositions keep us from inferring the miraculous?

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

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

What presuppositions keep us from inferring the miraculous?

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no mystery of evil, only a mystery of thick-headed obstinate Christians

I respond to a Christian who articulates the problem of "evil".  See here.

In case the post gets deleted, here's what I said:

Barry Jones18 Jun 2020 at 10:59 pm 

The only problem with evil is the Christians who falsely continue to view God as some sort of good-willed grandfather type figure. Wrong. Read Ezekiel 37-38. God views human beings like little boys view toy soldiers. In fact, the bible god is more evil than the Canaanites. I’ve proven Frank Turk was wrong in stating the Canaanites “watched their babies sizzle to death”, as there is no historical evidence, whatsoever, that Canaanites used fire as the means to kill kids. The historical sources say the child’s throat was cut before they were placed on the altar. None of the sources makes an equal specification that the kids were still alive when placed in the fire, and the Hebrew’s own historical example of Abraham trying to kill his son before lighting the fire (Genesis 22:19) would provide a reasonable basis to confirm the throat-cutting practice. 

Cremation of a corpse is not the same thing as immolation. See my scholarly post at https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2017/10/frank-tureks-dishonesty-concerning.html 

So because there is no evidence the Canaanites used fire to kill children, while the bible makes clear that God wants the preteen girl to be burned to death merely for a single act of premarital fornication (Leviticus 21:9), Turek must admit the ironic fact that his attempt to make the Canaanites appear to modern Americans as more “deserving” of genocide actually backfires. 

Then again, being a bible-believer makes you immune to certain morals. If God told you stab your child to death and burn his body, well….you DO admit you have the faith of Abraham (Genesis 22:10/Hebrews 11:19), correct.

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Screenshot: 

God commands genocide, my challenge to Claude Mariottini

There's this book called Show Them No Mercy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003) wherein several Christian scholars debate the thorny issue of the bible-god's apparent ordering the ancient Hebrews to slaughter all Canaanite men, women and children living in certain specified locales, and whether this can be reconciled with God's alleged command in the NT that his people be loving toward everybody else.

In other words, a problem of consistency that only worries those who ascribe to bible "inerrancy".

One of the Christian scholars to contribute an article in that book was C. S. Cowles, who wrote the article “The Case for Radical Discontinuity". He emphasizes NT passages which say the Old Covenant was imperfect and is passing away.

Dr. Mariottini has a blog and responded to Cowles, trying to argue under a presumption of biblical inerrancy that there is no inconsistency between the OT God commanding such genocide and the NT God who commands people to love one another.

I replied to Mariottini, see here.  I post the content below in case the good doctor deletes my post:

          Barry Jones says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
June 17, 2020 at 4:25 pm

Dear Dr. Mariottini, 

Frank Turek and other "apologists" strongly emphasize that objective morality proves god. Turek thus argues that most of humanity recognize rape as immoral, yet atheism cannot account for this pattern of opinion in human history, therefore, god did it. But most people also strongly oppose infanticide (Numbers 31:17, 1st Samuel 15:2-3), and they equally oppose using fire to kill a preteen girl merely for having premarital sex in her father's house (Leviticus 21:9, by having sex in her father's house, she likely still lives there, and thus is likely still unmarried and thus likely not older than about 12). 

If the collective human condemnation of rape proves God, why shouldn't we extend Turek's logic and similarly presume that because it is the Holy Spirit who convinces everybody that rape is absolutely immoral, it is also the Holy Spirit who convinces everybody that infanticide and burning children to death are absolutely immoral?

By what criteria do we decide when collective human moral opinion ultimately stems from the Holy Spirit, and when it doesn't?

Sure, that would have the effect of proving those parts of the bible are not inspired by God, but wouldn't logical consistency be a higher priority than bible inerrancy, given the former is beyond question, while the latter is the subject of endless confusion and disagreement within the Evangelical Christian camp?

Or do you think Turk is merely overstating the force of the moral argument for God?