The Mental Discomfort of “Why?” James Still * I do not believe in dead things and cannot distinguish between being no more and never having been.  -André Gide. Abbreviations 1. Preliminaries 2. Wittgenstein and God 3. The Expression of "Why?" and the Problem of Life 4. “Why?” in Religious Practice 5. "Why?" in the Cosmological […]

Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: Obeying a Rule On Only One Occasion in §199 James Still Wittgenstein argues that meaning and use should not be conflated; the whole use of the meaning of a word (the steps to be taken) cannot be understood in a flash nor can the use fit the meaning simultaneously in that flash […]

Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: The Muddle of Understanding as a Mental Process James Still Wittgenstein writes that "perhaps you will say . . . understanding itself is a [mental] state" (PI, 146). Wittgenstein presents this supposition–that the demonstration or viable accompaniments to understanding are symptomatic of an underlying mental state–in order to reduce the notion to […]

Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: The Grammatical Fiction of PI §307 James Still In §307 Wittgenstein is accused of denying that mental processes are an essential element within the individual who experiences a sensation S; only the expressions of S exist while S itself if a fiction. Wittgenstein counters that the only fiction involved in the discussion […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: Virgin Birth The Virgin Birth and Childhood Mysteries of Jesus James Still Biblical scholars have long ago dismissed the literal interpretation of the miraculous virgin-birth of Jesus. Also, many liberal Christian denominations have either quietly purged the curious piece of teaching from their body of philosophy, or conveniently ignore the […]

Lord, Liar or Lunatic? An Analysis of the Trilemma James Still Christian apologist C. S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity that Jesus was either Lord, a lunatic, or "the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse." Josh […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: The Syrophoenician Woman in Mark 7:25-30/Matthew 15:21-28 The Syrophoenician Woman in Mark 7:25-30/Matthew 15:21-28 James Still Mark’s Text The Syrophoenician woman pericope is found in Mark 7:25-30 and paralleled in Matthew 15:21-28. Mark’s version of the story reads: [A] woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about [Jesus], and […]

Reliability and Belief (1999) James Still   Introductory Remarks Christianity is a religion built upon faith. Faith is central to the Apostle Paul’s vocabulary and intertwined within his theology as a whole. For Paul, to become a Christian is to believe in one’s heart that God has acted through the risen Christ to bring about […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity Critique of "Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity" by Josh McDowell and Don Stewart James Still Josh McDowell, organizer and minister to the Campus Crusade for Christ, co-wrote with Don Stewart, the infamous book Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity. The introduction states that Reasons was "written […]

Kerygmatic Sources of the Jesus Movement James Still Christianity begins with John the Baptist. The earliest gospel, Mark, begins with the Baptism of Jesus by John (1:1-11), and the other three include a narrative of John’s ministry in their accounts as well (Mt. 3:1-12; Lk. 3:1-20; Jn. 1:1-8, 19-36; 3:23-30). Outside of the gospels we […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: Eternity and Time in William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument Eternity and Time in William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument James Still *   The clocks were functioning, thus someone must have set them in motion, even if their winding had been designed to last a long time. -Umberto Eco […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: John Context Contextual Problems with the Gospel of John James Still The Johannine material (Gospel of John) is a radical departure from the synoptics of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. John’s psuedepigraphical author relied solely on the Greek Septuagint, did not have a Semitic-language background, and Colwell (Greek of the Fourth […]

The Problem with Jesus’ Arrest and Trial James Still There is a problem when dealing with the various contradictory biblical accounts of Jesus’ arrest and trial as they relate to each other and Jewish practice of the day. We are told in Mark’s gospel that after Jesus enters Jerusalem he is soon arrested praying at […]

The Search for the Historical Jesus James Still Before the nineteenth century, when Christians sought to understand Jesus and the ancient world depicted in the gospels, they adhered to naturalistic literalism. Naturalistic literalism is the practice of reading the Scriptures and accepting the events that are described therein as the literal truth. No one had […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: The Institution Narrative of Luke 22:19-20 The Institution Narrative of Luke 22:19-20 James Still 1. Introduction In the gospels, issues involving fasting, eating, and drinking plague Jesus. Just after his forty day fast in the wilderness, Satan tempts Jesus to turn a stone into bread (Mt. 4:3; Lk. 4:3). While […]

The Pre-Canonical Synoptic Transmission: Who Was the Historical Jesus? The biblical tradition places Jesus’ birth in Palestine at the town of Nazareth “in the days of Herod, king of Judea” (Lk. 1:5). We do know that Herod reigned from 40 BCE to his death in 4 BCE, so Jesus was born no later than 4 […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: Gospel John The Gospel of John and the Hellenization of Jesus James Still In John we find the culmination of Greek philosophy that has created the Jesus that we are the most familiar with today. A fully-formed Hellenized Jesus has emerged to become an equal with God. The Gospel of […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: What Is a Gospel? What Is a Gospel? James Still Gospel is derived from the Greek word euaggelion and means “good news.” The genre of gospels include the four canonical books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as well as some extrabiblical gospels written in the second century. The good […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: Book Review: The God Who Sits Enthroned Book Review: The God Who Sits Enthroned James Still Fernandes, Phil. (1997): The God Who Sits Enthroned. Bremerton, WA: IBD Press. 164 pages. $10.00. Dr. Fernandes’s book touches on many of the major themes in Fundamentalist Christian apologetics and concentrates especially on three […]

Argument Against God From Evil James Still One thing to remember when discussing the existence or non-existence of God is that we are limited by our language. The paradox is that by even suggesting the variable "God" we are forced to assume its existence for the sake of the discussion. This paradox was first recognized […]

Book Review: The Jesus Puzzle James Still Doherty, Earl. (1999): The Jesus Puzzle. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Humanist Publications. 380 pages. U.S. $14.50. Most survey books on the historical Jesus begin with the quiet assumption that a human man lay at the core of a superstructure of myths piled upon him in the subsequent four centuries […]

Library: Modern Documents: James Still: Descartes’ Meditations Ontological Argument Descartes’ Meditations Ontological Argument James Still Descartes’s fifth Meditation argument for God’s existence relies on an untenable notion that existence is a perfection and that it can be predicated of God. I shall first explain what Descartes’s argument for God’s existence is, and then present his […]

Astarte and Yahweh James Still Long before the Yahweh cult emerged among the Hebrews in the Ancient Near East the Goddess Astarte was worshipped by them. Her oldest temple at Byblos dates back to the Neolithic and she flourished in the Bronze Age where she was also known as Demeter in Greece and Ishtar in […]

The Absurd Life: Barabbas and Christ James Still There is a certain Faustian conflict in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus says, "Blessed are they who have been persecuted within themselves. It is they who have truly come to know the father."[1] Just as Mephistopheles tells Faust that the darkness gives birth to the […]

God and Moral Autonomy* James Rachels Kneeling down or grovelling on the ground, even to express your reverence for heavenly things, is contrary to human dignity. — Kant God, if he exists, is worthy of worship. Any being who is not worthy of worship cannot be God, just as any being who is not omnipotent […]

Response To Jim Lippard’s The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah James D. Price, Ph. D. Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Temple Baptist Seminary Chattanooga, TN 37404 (423) 493-4246 e-mail drjdprice Dec. 15, 1995 Jim Lippard’s article was written in an attempt to discredit the claims that certain Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament were […]

Far-Out Religious Right Comes Out of a Crazy Mold (The Washington Spectator, Sept. 15, 1995) "Think not that I come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the […]

In Defense of the Fine Tuning Design Argument (2001) James Hannam   The Internet Infidels have long been interested in publishing a theistics defense of the fine-tuning argument against our criticisms, which are collected among our many essays on the Design Argument in general. James Hannam is the first to oblige, and the following essay […]