There's a post at Debunking Christianity that is worth a look. It's "The Straw God: Understanding The New Atheism" by Douglas Groothuis. On Monday I am debating the God Delusion with Marianne Talbot at a Fringe event at the Ox Lit Festival. Rewley House, 1 wellington Square. 7pm. Late bar. Entrance free.
(Published in Faith and Philosophy 2011. Volume 28, Issue 2, April 2011. Stephen Law. Pages 129-151) EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS Stephen Law Abstract The vast majority of Biblical historians believe there is evidence sufficient to place Jesus’ existence beyond reasonable doubt. Many believe the New Testament documents alone suffice firmly to establish Jesus as an actual, historical figure. I question these views. In particular, I argue (i) that the three most popular criteria by which various non-miraculous New Testament claims made about Jesus are supposedly corroborated are not sufficient, either singly or jointly, to place his existence beyond reasonable doubt, and (ii) that a prima facie plausible principle concerning how evidence should be assessed – a principle I call the contamination principle – entails that, given the large proportion of uncorroborated miracle claims made about Jesus in the New Testament documents, we should, in the absence of indepen...
Comments
I see no need to repeat myself, other than to note I'm not Groothuis' biggest fan.
I have published stuff by Groothuis in THINK. This is not his best work. It's puzzling in fact, because he is capable of so much better.
Don't quit! Your site provides a wonderful service to naturalists- or atheists in this context - like me who are pretty unfamiliar with christianity.
IMV Goothius's piece is pretty appalling in terms of reason but publishing it on your site will give it the scrutiny and criticism that it deserves that otherwise might have gone amiss.
Stephen was right to bring attention to this as if this is the best that christians can offer then they don have a leg to stand on, certainly in terms of interfering with public policy and public morality.
There is no god attacking atheists.
God used to strike people down dead for not giving all their money to the church.
Now Dawkins can get a million in royalties from a book attacking God, who does nothing, not even turning up to Dawkins debates to show Dawkins that he is wrong.
I couldn't get past the beginning of his argument, "Historic Christianity, on the contrary, is well rooted in objective historical facts."
Oh really. Then I should be able to pick up any article or book written by an historical scholar of the ancient Levant, and the resurrection from death of an itinerant preacher is treated as a well established fact.
Show me that and the data that support it.
If his first argument is so not right that it can't even be considered wrong, why would I even keep reading (I didn't)?
I think what Groothuis is saying is that there is no evidence for the existence of Arimathea, Joseph of Arimathea, Judas, Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, the Angel Moroni, Joanna , Salome, Nicodemus , Bartimaeus, Lazarus, Martha, Judas,Thomas etc etc
Does one Christian of the first century name himself as ever having seeing any of them?
As soon as there is a public church , in Acts 2, with the possibility of public records, almost the entire cast of Gospel characters disappear from Acts and early church letters as though they had never been.
I assume they went to wherever the Angel Moroni went to when Joseph Smith went public with his claims.
And the Gospels are full of the same sorts of frauds and lies as the Koran and the Book of Mormon are, as my article Miracles shows to all except the most deluded