Uninvented – The Book
A recent blog post praises the Mike D’Virgilio’s book, Uninvented. A book which I found to be unconvincing and poorly argued. The author appears to be saying that he finds the bible believable because he wants to believe it. Mike will of course deny that’s his position, but that was the impression I got from reading it. His constant deferring to ‘verisimilitude’ is what gives this impression.
In typical fundamentalist Christian fashion, this blog post praises Mike’s book,
(https://snyderssoapbox.com/2023/03/15/a-review-of-holy-bible-uninvented-by-mike-dvirgilio/) and also contains a link to the Unbelievable? conversation that I had with Mike.
I can not recommend Mike’s book, at all. Reading it was a deeply frustrating experience. The conversation we had on Unbelievable? revealed a naïve simplicity in his approach to biblical reliability. One which goes against standard historical approaches. His book contains claims which are demonstrably false; that the ancient culture in the bible didn’t have it in them to write fiction, that book translations found in the dead sea scroll were word perfect. When Mike’s book can’t even be relied upon to get these simple checkable facts right, then how on earth can it be expected to get other things right?
Look out for upcoming episodes of Still Unbelievable!, where we interview Mike, and also discuss the comments under the YouTube video of the discussion.
Reasons Why People Decided To Leave Organized Religion For Good
This is why Christians need to stop talking about those who leave their religion, and instead start listening.
When Christians offer opinions about others, they typically get it wrong, and this blog post is a perfect example of arrogant Christianity getting it wrong.
People have all sorts of excuses and they have all sorts of motivating triggers that help them make a decision. One thing that bothers us about the reasons they give is that there is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Yet, these people who have turned away from different religions, mostly those that claim to be Christian., have decided to toss all of their faith away instead of moving to a different church (non-cultic) that meets their needs and shows them what Christianity is all about.
We are not going to list the reasons here, but you can read one list at this link and see the myriad of articles on this topic at this link. There is one thing in common in all of these lists. Almost everyone on these lists blames other people for their decision to leave their respective religions.
The Bible says…
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Episode 91 – Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down
Summary
Episode 91, Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down. In this episode Andrew and Matthew welcome Bekah McNeel to talk about her book and the deconstruction that prompted it. Bekah is an engaging author and a delightful individual and we both thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. We also highly recommend her book, it is insightful. Towards the end of this episode we touch on Bekah’s next book and we hope to have her back when that is out. In the meantime, if you know someone or you are someone, who can speak authoritatively on gun violence or on abortion and how each are impacted by fundamentalist Christianity, then please get in touch we are actively seeking out guests for both those subjects. Reasonpress@gmail.com
Bekah McNeel
Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down
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Transcription
Episode 90 – Justin Brierley
Summary
In this episode we chat with Justin Brierley, host of the very popular Premier Unbelievable? podcast.
We’d really enjoyed this chat with Justin, but we didn’t get to cover many of the questions that we gathered, so we will ask and try to have him back again.
We cover a little bit of his show and we also talk about arguments for Christianity and why people leave Christianity.
Listen to (or watch) Matthew’s appearance on Unbelievable?
Andrew on Unbelievable? discussing the book Still Unbelievable!
Read Still Unbelievable! for free
https://www.reasonpress.net/SU1E/Introduction
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Transcription
Episode 85 – Answering Dr Michael Brown’s 7 Questions for atheists
Summary
Episode 85: 7 Questions for Atheists by Dr Michael Brown
This is Matthew and in this episode of Still Unbelievable! Andrew and I are joined by friends who are repeat guests to answer questions for Atheists by Dr Michael Brown. To see his list of questions, see link 1 in the show notes. As part of our response to the first question, Andrew gives a couple of resources for those struggling with religious issues, these are can be found in Links 2 and 3, link 3 covers most countries around the world, not just the USA. Links 4 and 5 are UK based resources I was able to find.
Also during the discussion Andrew references a discussion with Brian Blais on miracles, that is Epsiode 84, and finally David mentions his Red Letters blog and book, see link 6.
Enjoy the show.
1) https://www.christianpost.com/voices/7-honest-questions-for-atheists.html
2) https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/hotline-project2
3) https://www.seculartherapy.org/
4) https://www.hopevalleycounselling.com/resources
5) https://www.religionrehab.co.uk/
6) David’s RedLetters blog and book redletters: https://www.patreon.com/redletters
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Episode 84 – Miracles with Brian Blais
Summary
Episode 84 Miracles.
We welcome returning guest Brian Blais to talk about miracles. Andrew gives an update on the failed prayer to heal his eyesight, and towards the end of the show, she have a special appearance by David from Skeptics and Seekers.
For further discussion regarding the shoe on the roof NDE story that we raise and Gary Habermas likes to promote see the digital gnosis youtube video in link 1. It’s a very long video and they talk about a lot of cases, including this one, including the detail that one of the accounts is 4th hand and 7 years later. Something that Gary Habermas fails to mention.
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TdLoGpIu3Q&t=11263s
Digitial Gnosis Bad Apologetics series:
2) https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Mar/23/a-long-discussion-about-miracles/
Brian’s blog:
All about miracles from the blog:
4) https://bblais.github.io/search.html?q=miracles
Why we need double-blind studies:
5) https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/May/31/why-do-we-need-double-blind-studies/
The Mozambique study discussion:
Original mozambique prayer study paper on researchgate
Another critique of the paper
8) https://www.patheos.com/blogs/epiphenom/2011/02/truly-dreadful-study-into-effects-of.html
Double blind accupuncture study
9) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4352029/
The macular degeneration “miracle”:
The pool table “miracle”:
Brian’s responses to John McLatchie:
Dubious medical procedures:
12) https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/Jul/09/skepticism-and-dubious-medical-procedures/
On what would convince Brian:
13) https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/24/ongoing-conversation-with-jonathan-mclatchie/
Bayes, prophecy, etc…:
14) https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/18/bad-apologetics/
Resurrection vs Proton Decay:
15) https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/17/proton-decay-and-the-resurrection-of-jesus/
Some comments and math on testimony:
16) https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jun/14/sometimes-more-testimony-is-worse/
Item on NDEs, which includes the shoe on the roof that we discuss.
17) https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1340&context=lts_fac_pubs
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Episode 83 – Reviewing Christians on the Minimal Facts
Summary
Andrew and Matthew discuss and review a Christian podcast talking about the Minimal Facts claims for the resurrection.
Original Video
Critique of the Criterion of embarrassment:
1) https://skepticink.com/humesapprentice/2014/08/21/the-criterion-of-embarrassment/
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT3hdI5Peo4&t=1136s
4) http://www.ericlevy.com/Revel/Intro2/Hoerth%20-%20Egyptians.PDF
5) https://academic.oup.com/book/6259
7) https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/no-saul-the-persecutor-did-not-become-paul-the-apostle/
Download the PDF of the Gerd Ludemann – WLC debate
9) https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Resurrection_of_Christ.html?id=GRHZAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y
Paul Timeline
10) https://www.understandchristianity.com/timelines/chronology-pauls-ministry/
11) https://totallyhistory.com/biblical-history/paul-the-apostle-timeline/
12) https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/apostle-paul-timeline
13) https://www.blueletterbible.org/study/paul/timeline.cfm
Jesus Timeline
15) https://bible-history.com/chart-jesus-chronology/
16) https://www.datesandevents.org/people-timelines/36-timeline-of-jesus.htm
17) https://christianity.org.uk/article/timeline-of-jesus-life
18) https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/four-other-gospels-review-article/
19) https://alchetron.com/John-Dominic-Crossan
20) http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/CraigCrossanDebate.mp3
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Episode 82 – When Belief Dies Kills John Lennox
Summary
Matthew reviews episode 94 of When Belief Dies, in which they interview John Lennox
Episode 94 of When Belief Dies
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF6JySDwrHQ
2) https://open.spotify.com/show/5nUeWwl36pBXpPSXFsP5R0
Dawkins on scientism
3) https://unherd.com/thepost/richard-dawkins-scientism-is-a-dirty-word/
4) https://terebess.hu/keletkultinfo/The_Blind_Watchmaker.pdf
Review of Nagel’s book
6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Margulis
8) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part3.html
9) https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-4.html
11) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Flew
12) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-3-what-is-panpsychism/id1436336109?i=1000465737651
13) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_McClintock
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Transcription
Episode 79 – How (not) to talk to an atheist
Summary
In this episode, Matthew reviews a podcast where Christians give their take on about how to talk to an atheist.
Unapologetic video:
Dealing With Deconstruction YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DealingWithDeconstruction
1) Mental Health awareness
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week
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Confessions Of A YEC - Featuring Still Unbelievable! 