Jesus - A Tippling Philosopher (Page 7)

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Jesus

A collection of 165 posts

Cracking review of The Nativity: A Critical Examination

I’ve never written a book review before. Occasionally I’ve considered reviewing books and essays I found to be not only interesting, but enjoyable and enlightening. So I’ve decided that once in a while, when I’ve read something I consider really well done, I would write about it here that I might

The historicity of the Nativity

Just to topically remind people of my last authored book, on the Nativity, called The Nativity: A Critical Examination. I recently cleared the book up of a few typographical errors and whatnot so that it is looking better than ever. The book is a concise yet comprehensive look at the

It's Christmas - my Nativity Debate

Here's a reminder about my debate with Randal Rauser which took place last year over the historicity of the nativity accounts. Listen in and enjoy! The post from last year. My nativity book is available from the sidebar over there!

The Nativity tomorrow night at Southampton University

Be there, or be square. Jonathan Pearce: The Nativity Hi all, This Monday, 2nd December, local skeptic and author Jonathan Pearce will be giving a talk entitled The Nativity: A Critical Examination, based on a book of his of the same name, followed by a Q&A. Jonathan has

Andreas Schueler

The 'my mum' argument against God

Quote of the Day from Andy Schueler: Oh, and I also like the "my mom" argument, which I just made up :-D

The Immorality of the Atonement - The Idea that God Wants Blood

Here is another piece, this time on the atonement and sin, from a friend who supplies adverts and what have you to the Free Inquiry magazine amongst others. He has a special interest in the fascinating life of Robert Ingersoll.

Ehrman on the Nativity

This is the sort of stuff I talk about in my book The Nativity: A Critical Examination, available from the sidebar over there on your right! From Bart Ehrman's blog: - Christianity In Antiquity (behind a members only wall):

The Jesus of History and the Christ of Myth

Aaron Adair, as you well know, has recently written a book which I edited and which is getting rave reviews. Here is a presentation on the historicity of Jesus which he recently gave which looks at the whole broad topic, touching on the Star later in the talk. This is a fascinating talk, though am o

The Earliest Connection between UFOs and the Star of Bethlehem–A Follow-up

In my last post about the various ways that the Star of Bethlehem from the Gospel of Matthew had been imagined, I talked about the folks that thought it was some sort of alien craft or UFO. When I wrote it, my best efforts to find the earliest claim to that came from Rev. Barry Downing in 1968. Howe

Lies, lies, lies!

Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman wrote this article for the HuffPo. The gist of the article is that portions of the New Testament were written by people who lied about their identity. Ehrman also explains why this matters.

Biblical Exegesis

Richard Carrier on his mythicist theory

Here is a good talk from Richard Carrier as it sets out his thesis from start to finish and it is recent. See what you think. Are you a mythicist? Are you a historicist? Or are you, like me, somewhat agnostic?

Joseph of Arimathea - fact or fiction? Er, fiction.

Joseph of Arimathea used to be used by William Lane Craig as a pillar of his truth claims for the Resurrection, itself one of the four cornerstones of his apology. Richard Carrier, amongst others, has provided some very interesting viewpoints on the historicity of this figure (or lack thereof). Crai

WPA poster c. 1938. In public domain.

Biblical Exegesis

Heads You Win, Tails I Lose #1

When thinking about subjects like the fine-tuning argument it becomes apparent that the theist loves to have their cake and eat it. They thrive off a “heads I win, tails you lose" scenario. What I mean by this can be exemplified as follows: In the fine-tuning argument when a skeptic argues:

The hoops the Christian has to jump through to believe the Nativity

Biblical Exegesis

The hoops the Christian has to jump through to believe the Nativity

I thought I'd re-post this thread from when I was regularly contributing to John's original Debunking Christianity blog. See what you think: I was recently talking, an a thread or two, about the historical implausibility of pretty much all of the claims in both Luke and Matthew with regards to

The problems with Jesus...

It's time for another video instalment! This time I concentrate on issues surrounding the coherence of a famous chap named Jesus. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlHI31JYbzE[/youtube]