Videos

Join Internet Infidels social media manager Edouard Tahmizian and Vice President of Internet Infidels John MacDonald for an interesting talk about how little biblical scholars claim to know about Jesus (namely, that he was baptized by John the Baptist and crucified), about whether Jesus even knew John the Baptist, and about the relationship between Jesus and Moses in the Gospel of Matthew as an illustration of how Gospel authors retooled Old Testament stories for new theological purposes in the New Testament. Check out this interview for a quick overview of an important aspect of early Christian history and an update on Secular Web Kids.

Join Freethinker Podcast host Edouard Tahmizian in this shy of half-hour interview with Bill Gaede, cohost of the Rational Science podcast, where they explore an understanding of mathematical physics alternative to physical interpretations of quantum mechanics (on phenomena like action at a distance) and general relativity (on phenomena like gravity) that Gaede calls the rope hypothesis, in which "shape" is a primary physical property. Tune in for Gaede's explanation of how magnets attract and a short history of his previous life as an industrial spy during the Cold War.

Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this 5-minute interview with a mystery guest about the meaning of the word "secular," about why he is not a Christian and doesn't buy the empty tomb narratives as evidence for Jesus' resurrection, about what human and animal suffering can tell us about the existence or nonexistence of God, about whether beauty in the world points to the existence of God, and more! Check out the mystery guest's answers to these deep questions put in words that everyone can understand.

Join Freethinker Podcast host Edouard Tahmizian for this roughly half-hour interview with prominent historian and freethinker Richard C. Carrier about whether or not the Jewish polemic in Matthew's gospel alluded to by Justin Martyr corroborates the existence of a historical Jesus, about what (assuming that there was a historical Jesus) happened to Jesus' body after his death, about what reasons we have to think that the Josephus quote mentioning Jesus was entirely (rather than partially) forged, and about why the empty tomb narratives were invented, or why contemporaneous sources never call out the fictional nature of Jesus, if Jesus never existed, among other things. Check out this very informative interview!

Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this 15-minute interview with Aron Ra, regional director for American Atheists, author of Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism, host of the Ra-Men podcast, and director of the Phylogeny Explorer Project as they discuss Aron Ra's phylogeny challenge to creationists, how both archeology and genetics testify to the ahistoricity of the Noah's Ark legend, and how religious belief is too closely tied to individuals' identities to promote the search for truth.

Join Edouard Tahmizian in this nearly half-hour interview with Dan Barker, co-president of the long-running Freedom from Religion Foundation, about how the fine-tuning argument for a designer fallaciously equivocates order/organization with intentional design, the best evidence for evolution, the historical reliability of the canonical Gospels and their divergent resurrection accounts, the historicity of Jesus, and more! Check out this fantastic interview with a preacher-turned-atheist who’s done his homework on a wide range of issues.

In this roughly hour-long interview with leading biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan, host Edouard Tahmizian delves into Crossan’s intriguing exploration of how Paul recast the Judaic concept of a general resurrection at the end of time as process that occurs through time, the obscenity of the notion that God oversaw Jesus’ murder so that Jesus could take the punishment for our sins to absolve us from having to receive it, what higher criticism has revealed about the use of “artistic license” in the composition of the canonical Gospels, and whether Jesus was one of many contemporaneous leaders experimenting with nonviolent resistance in response to Roman rule. Check out this intriguing interview with a world-class scholar on all of these issues and more!

In this nearly hour-long interview with the prominent historian and freethinker Richard C. Carrier, Freethinker Podcast host Edouard Tahmizian and fellow Internet Infidels board member John MacDonald talk with Carrier about his conversion from Christianity to Taoism before he adopted metaphysical naturalism, his mystical experiences, the literature on the historicity of Jesus and Jesus mythicism, the original intent of the authors of the canonical Gospels, and much more! Tune in for this fascinating discussion with a long-running scholar and freethought activist.

In this 20-minute overview of his Secular Web paper “God is Either the Efficient or Final Cause of Evil,” Edouard Tahmizian outlines his argument that if the biblical account outlined in Genesis is true, then God is ultimately the source of all evil since he is causally responsible for any original sin that humanity inherited from Adam and Eve’s initial transgression in the Garden of Eden.

In this half-hour long dialog, Edouard Tahmizian (host and board member of Internet Infidels) talks with Dr. David Madison, a pastor-turned-atheist who received his Ph.D. in biblical studies from Boston University School of Theology, Madison recounts how his early obsession with discerning history from legend in the Bible eventually led him to become an atheist. His challenge to theists today is to provide even one verifiable fact about God that all theists agree on, a challenge made particularly daunting by the fact that theists cannot even agree about which revealed text to consult in order to answer it. Madison also talks about the societal damage wrought by Jesus’ alleged words on the unacceptability of divorce, about whether he would return during his immediate followers’ lifetimes, about the historical unreliability of the canonical Gospels, and much more. Tune in for this fascinating discussion!

In this twenty-minute dialog, host and Internet Infidels social media manager Edouard Tahmizian talks with Bob Seidensticker, a retired Microsoft computer programmer and blogger for the last decade at the Patheos blog Cross Examined: Clear Thinking about Christianity. Join Edouard and John as they discuss historical Jesus studies, John’s deconversion and antitheism, the best arguments against the existence of God, the evidence for biological evolution, the lack of manuscripts of the canonical Gospels contemporaneous with the events they depict, and John’s forthcoming book 2-Minute Christianity: 50 Big Ideas Every Christian Should Understand.

In this half-hour dialog with Jesus mythicist David Fitzgerald, a one-time member of the now defunct Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, host Edouard Tahmizian explores Fitzgerald’s reasons for denying the historicity of Jesus, which were born out of trying to differentiate the historical person from the legendary accretions that built up around him.

In this over half-hour dialog with Dr. Dennis R. MacDonald, John Wesley Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at the Claremont School of Theology, host Edouard Tahmizian explores Dr. MacDonald’s work on the concept of mimesis and on reconstructing the historical Jesus.

In this 45-minute dialog with Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Literature at Butler University, host (and Internet Infidels social media manager) Edouard Tahmizian probes the penal substitutionary model of atonement, which Dr. McGrath rejects in favor of the participation model.

In this nearly hour-long speech to the Center for Inquiry, constitutional lawyer and secular activist Edward Tabash warns of the consequences of the horrific two-thirds religious right-wing majority on the United States Supreme Court: a rapid move toward ever-greater legal privileges that only the religious can enjoy. Religious objectors are quickly becoming the only members of society who are now permitted to discriminate against third parties. The Court is allowing them to use their faith to avoid complying with our country's anti-discrimination and employment protection laws.

In this video, Jason Thibodeau presents a prima facie case that the Euthyphro problem grounds serious objections to the divine command theory.

The Euthyphro dilemma says that either God has reasons for his commands, or He doesn’t. Take the second option. God has no reasons for His commands. Well, then God’s commands are arbitrary; but morality can’t be arbitrary. Now take the first option. God has reasons for His commands. Well, then these reasons themselves are sufficient to give us moral obligations. No need for God. The Euthyphro dilemma is meant to show that grounding morality in God is misguided. Jason Thibodeau argues that the Euthyphro dilemma is sound, whereas Matt Flannagan argues that it is not.

In this episode of Real Atheology, hosts Ben Watkins & John Lopilato interview Jason Thibodeau, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Cypress College, about the famous Euthyphro dilemma to classic divine command theory and how to respond to apologists who try to split the dilemma.

In this presentation from the 2017 Cypress College World Philosophy Day event, Jason Thibodeau discusses four common myths about morality: that (1) morality depends on God; (2) morality is subjective; (3) morality is relative; and (4) morality does not fit into a material world.

Does the afterlife exist? In this episode of the Armchair Atheism podcast, Taylor Carr explores the evidence for life after death and some of the questions surrounding it with philosopher and skeptic Keith Augustine.