Boxing Pythagoras

Philosophy from the mind of a fighter

Archive for the tag “gospels”

You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden underfoot.

“That is not danger,” said he. “It is inevitable destruction.  You stand in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty organisation, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realise.  You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden underfoot.”

The Final Problem, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A few days ago, I was reading a post from fellow blogger, Andrew Crigler, who writes Entertaining Christianity. He had written a fun little post, jovially comparing blind-faith beliefs to clothing for puppies, which I enjoyed and with which, for the most part, I agreed. However, at the end of the article, Andrew recommended his readers to J. Warner Wallace’s book Cold Case Christianity. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you might remember that I am no fan of J. Warner Wallace and, in fact, I think he is more akin to a crooked cop than an honest detective. I commented on Andrew’s post to convey this, and that began a nice back-and-forth conversation between us regarding Wallace and his claims. At one point, Andrew suggested that Wallace had written other articles which were more convincing, and formed on better logic, than the ones which I had critiqued. I asked him to suggest one, for me, so that I could read and review it here. Andrew provided me with a link to one of Wallace’s posts entitled, “The Case for the Eyewitness Status of the Gospel Authors.”

Unfortunately, I find this article to be just as poor as Wallace’s others.

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It’s elementary, my dear Wallace

Yesterday, I took Christian apologist J. Warner Wallace to task for his mishandling of “Two Hidden Science Facts” which he purported to exist in the writings of Luke and John. Wallace’s primary claim to fame is that he is a former cold-case homicide detective who uses the forensics skills he learned on the job to show that the evidence for Christianity is true. If yesterday’s article wasn’t sufficient to show that Wallace’s skills as a detective do not translate well to history, then today’s certainly will. I went back, a couple of weeks, through the PleaseConvinceMe.com blog, and found this article from April 7th, “Is the Bible True? The Cumulative Case for the Reliability of the Gospels.”

J. Warner Wallace is being entirely dishonest when he pretends that a dispassionate view of the evidence supports the case which he presents.

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Why I am not a Christian

As I was flipping through the radio stations while driving home, last night, I stopped on a local Catholic broadcast. It was right around 7:00pm, which meant that Catholic Answers was being aired– a program dedicated to apologetics and engaging the questions that people, both within and without, may have about Catholicism. Last night’s episode was specifically asking for non-Christians to call in and share the reasons they have, if any, for not being Christian. I was extremely tempted to call in, myself, but I had other plans which took precedence, unfortunately. So, instead of engaging with the apologists on Catholic Answers, I will have to content myself with laying out my reasoning, here.

In 1927, the very famous 20th Century philosopher and logician, Bertrand Russell, presented a lecture to the National Secular Society in South London which was entitled, “Why I Am Not A Christian,” a lecture which would later become widely reproduced and wildly famous. In the essay, Lord Russell lays out nearly a dozen different topics to explain why he did not adhere to the faith so widely practiced throughout the West. My own list is quite a bit shorter than Russell’s– in fact it consists solely of a single topic:

“…if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.” 1 Corinthians 15:14 (NRSV)

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