In this essay, John MacDonald attempts to recover the oldest meaning of the cross of Jesus and that of Jesus' resurrection in their historical context. The paper argues that penal substitution, the popular conservative evangelical interpretation of the cross, is incorrect, and furthermore that it results in interpretive absurdities when applied to the text/evidence. Penal substitution claims that a just God lacks the ability to forgive, and so requires punishment for sin, where the innocent Jesus was substituted for us sinners and brutally bore the punishment for our sins, wiping our sin debt clean. By contrast, this essay presents a nonpenal substitution participation crucifixion model, where Jesus is understood to be our willing victim as a catalyst for opening our eyes to our hidden "satanic influenced vileness" and for encouraging repentance. The oldest meaning of the resurrection of Jesus will also be shown to be what Jesus' disciples took to be evidence for overcoming death in a blessed way, and empowering us to live righteously. The cross/resurrection argument will further be contextualized in a Second Temple framework of apocalypticism and demonology/superstition to show that the original meaning of the cross and resurrection is so divorced from most modern Christian frameworks and beliefs that many modern Christian would reject the heart of what their ancient counterpart would hold as fundamental to living a good and holy Christian life. The upshot is that the usual modern conservative interpretations of the cross and resurrection bear no, or at least merely superficial, relation to the original ancient ones.
Added the thirty-sixth Freethinker Podcast YouTube follow-up interview with Justin Ykema (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this quick follow-up interview with Justin Ykema, author of “A Critique of the Free Will Defense: A Comprehensive Look at Alvin Plantinga’s Solution to the Problem of […]
Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this quick follow-up interview with Justin Ykema, author of "A Critique of the Free Will Defense: A Comprehensive Look at Alvin Plantinga's Solution to the Problem of Evil," about his forthcoming Secular Web Kiosk piece on whether psychology, as it's currently practiced, is genuine science. Ykema notes how his discussion with a speech pathologist about children with autism fall on a "spectrum" spurred his thinking about how psychology seems more like statistics than science. For example, those on the autism spectrum can be high-functioning, moderate-functioning, or low functioning. Given such large differences between autistic individuals, Ykema suggests that psychology is closer to a branch of mathematics than one of science, in the sense that it foretells statistical probability in the same way that baseball players' future performance is extrapolated from their past performance, but doesn't involve experimental tests of hypotheses that can be replicated given the that each individual is unique. Ykema goes on to clarify that he won't be offering an abrasive stance against psychology, or arguing that it lacks empirical content, but simply pointing out that psychology might have been improperly classified as science when it's really more like data analysis (and thus been miscategorized in the same way that the general public has miscategorized a tomato as a vegetable when, by biological standards, it's unequivocally a fruit). Check out this intriguing interview!
New in the Kiosk: Are the Americas Mentioned in the Bible? (2022) by Robert Shaw The Pledge of Allegiance states that the United States of America is “one nation under God.” Additionally, polling shows that an overwhelming majority of American evangelical Christians believe that the United States is “uniquely blessed” by God. But is there […]
The Pledge of Allegiance states that the United States of America is "one nation under God." Additionally, polling shows that an overwhelming majority of American evangelical Christians believe that the United States is "uniquely blessed" by God. But is there any mention of the Americas in the Bible, or were they ever mentioned by Jesus or any of the Old Testament prophets? This article seeks to answer this question.
Added the thirty-fifth Freethinker Podcast YouTube interview with Hemant Mehta (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Join Edouard Tahmizian in this half-hour interview with Hemant Mehta, the legendary Friendly Atheist superblogger, YouTuber, podcast cohost, and former Jeopardy game show contestant who has appeared on CNN and Fox News and […]
Join Edouard Tahmizian in this half-hour interview with Hemant Mehta, the legendary Friendly Atheist superblogger, YouTuber, podcast cohost, and former Jeopardy game show contestant who has appeared on CNN and Fox News and served on the board of directors of Foundation Beyond Belief and the Secular Student Alliance. Tahmizian and Mehta canvass the logical holes one has to plug to believe in the literal truth of the Noah's Ark story as history (resulting in peculiar attempts by Answers in Genesis to resolve the problems that such belief generates), how believers justify taking some claims in their religious texts as metaphorical while taking others literally, whether determinism about human actions precludes moral responsibility, the disconnect between philosophical debates and political action, and how his new stint at OnlySky has been going. Check out this fascinating conversation with a long-time atheist activist!
Added Can a Loving God Send People to Hell? (2022) by Raymond D. Bradley to the Logical Arguments from Evil page under Arguments for Atheism, the William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga pages under Christian Apologetics and Apologists, and the Christian Worldview page under Christianity in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. […]
In this essay, Raymond D. Bradley shows that a loving God would be incapable of sending people to Hell by considering what follows logically from accepting the alternative. He argues that free will defenses of the sort offered by Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig are logically fallacious, philosophically erroneous, and unbiblical. Bradley concludes that the problem of Hell puts biblical Christian theists in an inescapable logical bind.
New in the Kiosk: Secular Surge (2022) by James A. Haught The long-foreseen Secular Age is arriving at a gallop. Survey after survey finds snowballing increases of Americans who say their religion is “none.” The 2017 American Family Survey found that “nones” have climbed past one-third of U.S. adults—the highest ratio yet tallied. These churchless […]
The long-foreseen Secular Age is arriving at a gallop. Survey after survey finds snowballing increases of Americans who say their religion is "none." The 2017 American Family Survey found that "nones" have climbed past one-third of U.S. adults—the highest ratio yet tallied. These churchless people have become the nation's largest faith category.
Added the thirty-fourth Freethinker Podcast YouTube interview with Massimo Pigliucci (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Join Edouard Tahmizian in this half-hour interview with Massimo Pigliucci, K. D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement […]
Join Edouard Tahmizian in this half-hour interview with Massimo Pigliucci, K. D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science with doctorates in evolutionary biology, genetics, and philosophy. Pigliucci canvasses the philosophy of science since Karl Popper, particularly on the issue of how best to distinguish science from pseudoscience (where many pseudosciences are falsified in practice, and thus falsifiable in principle), before turning to his main criticisms of the so-called "New Atheists," Aristotle's three components of persuasion (arguments/reasons/facts, credibility, and getting your audience to care about what you're saying), his debates with creationists, his criticisms of Bernardo Kastrup's view that consciousness is fundamental, why he thinks that posing the hard problem of consciousness involves committing a category mistake, and the biologically indefensible implications of taking the Noah's Ark story as literal history. Check out this intriguing discussion of such a wide assortment of topics!
Added the thirty-third Freethinker Podcast YouTube interview with Monica L. Miller (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Tune in to a discussion between host Edouard Tahmizian and Monica L. Miller, the Vice President of the Humanist Global Charity and Executive Director of the Humanist Legal Society who has litigated […]
Tune in to a discussion between host Edouard Tahmizian and Monica L. Miller, the Vice President of the Humanist Global Charity and Executive Director of the Humanist Legal Society who has litigated for the American Humanist Association and the Nonhuman Rights Project, the only civil rights organization in the United States dedicated solely to securing rights for nonhuman animals. Miller has litigated nearly 30 First Amendment cases before the US Supreme Court and the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits, as well as historic animal personhood cases, and has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, The Young Turks, and other media outlets. In this discussion, Miller notes how busy the new Supreme Court has kept civil rights lawyers lately on church-state separation issues that they would have easily won in the recent past, the church-state violation cases that she's currently working on, and cases that she's worked on in the recent past. She also talks about some of the recent articles that she's written as an OnlySky columnist, such as an article on how Christians actually have to most to lose when the principle of separation of church and state is not upheld in practice and Christian religious ideals get watered down in the public square or become subject to more public scorn or ridicule than would occur otherwise. Check out this quick yet informative interview on the more pressing issues facing nonbelievers in the coming years!
Added Review of The God Debates (2022) by Taylor Carr to to the Theistic Cosmological Arguments, Argument to Design, and Religious Experience pages under Arguments for the Existence of a God, as well as the the Evidential Arguments from Evil page under Arguments for Atheism, in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. It isn’t too difficult to get lost […]
It isn't too difficult to get lost in the language of the God debates. Navigating the landscape can quickly turn frustrating when so many of the foundational texts of theology rival the Bible itself in terms of length. Thankfully, there are books like John Shook's The God Debates that accurately and elegantly break down these sorts of subjects for a lay audience. Shook distinguishes five categories of theology that form the bedrock of discussion in the book. The chapters on these categories constitute an impressive and fairly comprehensive survey of the major approaches to theology in the last several centuries, cataloging important differences that help Shook construct a powerful case for doubt utilizing some of the very same issues that provoke these separations in theological thought. There is much to enjoy and learn from in The God Debates, even for those already acquainted with its major areas of focus. The overview given throughout the book is thought-provoking and insightful on multiple fronts. The author's awareness of so many domains of intersection with religion, and his attention to them, sets a high standard for discourse that needs to be emulated in more of the God debates.
Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this roughly 10-minute interview with Dale McGowan, chief content officer for the secular media platform OnlySky and author of the classic Parenting Beyond Belief. Dale and Ed's breezy chat kicks off with an overview of McGowan's checkered past teaching music, promoting science advocacy, podcasting, and serving as the managing editor of the nonreligious blogs at Patheos before most of their content creators migrated over to OnlySky in 2022. The discussion turns to OnlySky's vision for reaching out to the larger bell curve of people who have no religious affiliation, but don't explicitly identify as atheists or agnostics, and how OnlySky has a wider vision for media production compared to Patheos' exclusive function as a multiblog. Check it out!
Added the thirty-first Freethinker Podcast YouTube interview with David Fitzgerald and Dana Fredsti (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Tune in to this half-hour discussion between host Edouard Tahmizian and Jesus mythicist David Fitzgerald, a former member of the now defunct Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, and […]
Tune in to this half-hour discussion between host Edouard Tahmizian and Jesus mythicist David Fitzgerald, a former member of the now defunct Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, and his wife Dana Fredsti, a sci-fi author and actress who has appeared in such films as Army of Darkness. Edouard's guests survey the plot lines of their cowritten Time Shards trilogy, their favorite draft beers, and whether Jesus mythicism is going to go mainstream. Check out this wide-ranging interview on a variety of interesting topics!
Join Edouard Tahmizian in this over-an-hour interview/presentation with the legend himself, Jeffery Jay Lowder, co-founder of Internet Infidels, as they canvas approaching philosophical topics with a scouting rather than soldiering mindset, cognitive bias in the philosophy of religion, the definition of atheism, the Euthyphro dilemma to classic divine command theory, how inference to the best explanation and Bayesian approaches to evaluating evidence work, whether theism is a better explanation for the existence of objective moral facts than naturalism, William Lane Craig's moral argument for the existence of God, and much more!
New in the Kiosk: What’s Wrong with Using Bayes’ Theorem on Miracles? (2022) by John Loftus In this essay John Loftus defends Hitchens’ razor: “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” Christopher Hitchens’ point was that miracle claims without any evidence should be dismissed without a further thought. Bayes’ theorem requires the existence […]
In this essay John Loftus defends Hitchens’ razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hitchens' point was that miracle claims without any evidence should be dismissed without a further thought. Bayes' theorem requires the existence of some credible evidence/data before it can be correctly used in evaluating miracle claims. So to be Bayes-worthy, a miracle claim must first survive Hitchens' razor, which dismisses all miracle claims asserted without any evidence. If this first step doesn't take place, Bayes is being used inappropriately and must be opposed as irrelevant, unnecessary, and even counterproductive in our honest quest for truth.
Added the twenty-ninth Freethinker Podcast YouTube interview with Paul Richards (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this 5-minute interview with fellow board member Paul Richards, the top administrator of and board liason for Internet Infidels Discussion Board (IIDB). In this friendly chat, Paul briefly […]
Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this 5-minute interview with fellow board member Paul Richards, the top administrator of and board liason for Internet Infidels Discussion Board (IIDB). In this friendly chat, Paul briefly notes the recent history of IIDB and welcomes newbies looking for an online hub to take a look and sign up if they'd like to participate in the lively discussions on a wide range of topics there. The IIDB community has served as a kind of online family for many long-time IIDBrs, and is just a fun place to be for those looking to participate in humor contests or video game strategy rundowns in addition to the more heady discussions of science, skepticism, religion, and politics. There's a bit of something for everybody in the appropriate subforums, so if you're into chatting on discussion forums, check out the new and improved Internet Infidels Discussion Board!
Added the twenty-eighth Freethinker Podcast YouTube interview with Grant Kirkhope (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Check out this roughly 10-minute talk between Internet Infidels social media manager Edouard Tahmizian and Grant Kirkhope, a BAFTA-nominated (by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts) composer who composed the soundtrack […]
Check out this roughly 10-minute talk between Internet Infidels social media manager Edouard Tahmizian and Grant Kirkhope, a BAFTA-nominated (by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts) composer who composed the soundtrack for the video game series 007 Golden Eye, Perfect Dark, Ghostbusters, Mario Plus, Donkey Kong, and many others selling in excess of 30 millions copies, to say nothing of his movie soundtracks (including movies coming out January and March 2022). Kirkhope outlines his current musical projects, what it's like working with a large team on such projects, how he decides what musical score would be appropriate for a given video game, and the digital composition tools he uses to compose music for video games and movies and whether these have made his compositions easier to produce than before they were available. Tune in for this fascinating interview with an industry insider!
Added the twenty-seventh Freethinker Podcast YouTube interview with Justin Ykema (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this roughly 15-minute interview with Justin Ykema, author of “A Critique of the Free Will Defense: A Comprehensive Look at Alvin Plantinga’s Solution to the Problem of Evil.” […]
Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this roughly 15-minute interview with Justin Ykema, author of "A Critique of the Free Will Defense: A Comprehensive Look at Alvin Plantinga's Solution to the Problem of Evil." The discussion canvasses Ykema's main points of critique and motivation for writing his paper, such as the problem of evil casting doubt on any God being worthy of worship (since you would have to give up at least one of God's perfect power, knowledge, or goodness in light of the amount and kinds of suffering in the world). The discussion then turns to whether psychology is really a science, or whether it's closer to mathematics, given how heavily psychology relies on statistics, and given that the uniqueness of each individual makes it difficult, if not impossible, to replicate experiments across individuals. Ykema goes on to discuss what he's been doing since he got his philosophy degree before diving into what have been effective teaching styles in Ykema's experience. Check out this wide-ranging interview!
Added the twenty-sixth Freethinker Podcast YouTube interview with Jeana Jorgensen (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this 10-minute interview with Jeana Jorgensen, a lecturer at Butler University (Indiana) with degrees in folklore and gender studies. In this interview their discussion ranges from her goal […]
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