Author Jonathan MS Pearce

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

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 91 comments

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 infancy accounts of Jesus’ birth.

The situation is this. I maintain that, to hold to the notion that the accounts are historical, one has to jump through hoops. However, the Christian might say that one or two claims in the accounts may be false, but that does not mean that the other claims are false. But in this approach lie many issues. For example:

1) If we accept that some claims in the accounts are false, does the Christian special plead that the other claims are true?

2) The claims are so interconnected that to falsify one or two of them means that the house of cards comes tumbling down.

3) If we establish that at least some of the claims are false, how does this affect other claims within the same Gospel? How can we know that claims of Jesus’ miracles are true given that the reliability of the writer is accepted as questionable?

And so on.

Far from random, evolution follows a predictable genetic pattern, researchers find

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 24 comments

Evolution, often perceived as a series of random changes, might in fact be driven by a simple and repeated genetic solution to an environmental pressure that a broad range of specieshappen to share, according to new research.

Princeton University research published in the journal Science suggests that knowledge of a species’ genes—and how certain external conditions affect the proteins encoded by those genes—could be used to determine a predictable evolutionary pattern driven by outside factors. Scientists could then pinpoint how the diversity of adaptations seen in the natural world developed even in distantly related animals.

Big Bang: Is there room for God?

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 28 comments

On 15 October, a group of theologians, philosophers and physicists came together for two days in Geneva to talk about the Big Bang.

So what happened when people of such different – very different – views of the Universe came together to discuss how it all began?

“I realised there was a need to discuss this,” says Rolf Heuer, Cern’s director general.

“There’s a need for us, as naive scientists, to discuss with philosophers and theologians the time before or around the Big Bang.”

Real Deconversion Story #1 – Lorna

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 30 comments

I am hoping to run a series of real deconversion stories. I find the whole process very psychologically fascinating, especially since they can be both sad and desperately difficult for a myriad of reasons. Personally, I have never experienced anything like this myself and can only empathise from afar. These cases can be very cathartic for the authors.

I really appreciate the time and effort dedicated to writing these pieces and hope the process is of benefit to the authors. If you want to submit your own, then please contact me using the contact page above. Again, I thank the contributor here for a deeply personal and inspiring read – a small glimpse into the mind of an ex-Christian. If you want to ask Lorna a question, please comment below and I will forward any communication with her:

Republican Richard Mourdock: God intends rape pregnancies

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 32 comments

In a Tuesday night debate with his Democratic rival and a Libertarian candidate for one of Indiana’s U.S. Senate seats, Republican candidate Richard Mourdock suggested that pregnancies resulting from rape are “something that God intended to happen,” despite the “horrible situation” from which they derived.

The World Rejects Romney and Wants Obama, Poll Finds

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 9 comments

A BBC World Service opinion poll has found sharply higher overseas approval ratings for US President Barack Obama than Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

An average of 50% favoured Mr Obama, with 9% for Mr Romney, in the survey of 21,797 people in 21 countries.

Only Pakistan’s respondents said they would prefer to see Mr Romney win November’s election.

Breakthrough in world’s oldest undeciphered writing

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 1 comment

Experts working on proto-Elamite hope they are on the point of ‘a breakthrough’

The world’s oldest undeciphered writing system, which has so far defied attempts to uncover its 5,000-year-old secrets, could be about to be decoded by Oxford University academics.

This international research project is already casting light on a lost bronze age middle eastern society where enslaved workers lived on rations close to the starvation level.

“I think we are finally on the point of making a breakthrough,” says Jacob Dahl, fellow ofWolfsonCollege,Oxfordand director of the Ancient World Research Cluster.

Stephen Law vs William Lane Craig Part 3

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 7 comments

So, on to the rebuttals. Craig pointed out in several of his rebuttals that Law has not, and did not seem to want to, critique the cosmological argument. Craig does have some beef here as Law seemed to want to debate Craig’s version of God rather than the more fundamental argument over A God’s existence. Thus in true debate point-scoring, Law would take a hit here. However, as Law plainly stated, and I think this was a wise move, this would have broadened the scope too far and wasn’t important for discussing the moral character of Craig’s version of God (thus allowing Law to wedge in his evil God thesis).

What was one of my favourite moments, and it met with a good round of applause from the secularists in the audience (a clear minority), was when Law, whilst talking about his non-answering of Craig’s first (cosmological) argument, declared himself not to be an expert, and to say something like, “I don’t know, I mean I don’t know the answer to the question why the universe exist.”

Who’s in Charge Inside your Head?

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 4 comments

This is an interesting article from the New York Times. I like it – it is well written and thoughtful, making us ponder the reality of the selfish gene, and the idea that we could, at any time, be being manipulated by other organisms, unbeknownst to our humuncular selves.

Why I am Writing a Philosophical Fiction Book on Zombies (but not Necessarily Philosophical Zombies)

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 11 comments

Season 3 of the Walking Dead is hitting our screens any time soon or now depending on where you live. It’s a great show about an apocalyptic pandemic which turns humanity into zombies and sees the survivors pick up the pieces of their lives and society and figure out how to continue to survive and start up a new society.

What an awesome vehicle for philosophy. The series itself contains some juicy examples of moral dilemmas – enough to get any philosopher hooked. I love the idea of writing my own. So I am.

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 55 comments

I thought I’d resurrect this old chestnut. This was reported by the Secular Outpost some time ago:

“As reported by Christianity Today (see here), New Testament scholar Michael Licona has apparently lost both his job as research professor of New Testament at Southern Evangelical Seminary and been ousted as apologetics coordinator for the North America Mission Board (NAMB).

…

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Your problem here is that it is not a mantra designed to be talking about primary evidence. Primary evidence is the best evidence (usually, assuming sound of mind and not hallucinating etc). Your analogy fails because you are saying “If you could see both things with your bear eyes, then you would see they are both true.” However, this is a false analogy since we are talking about the standards of secondary and tertiary evidence.

Jesus’ Wife and Fakery!

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 4 comments

So the whole Jesus’ wife thing has been doing the rounds, and it seems that it is a fake. This article, from The Guardian, confirms through textual analysis that it is indeed so. It appears to rely on a modern typo:

No religious person found by survey under the age of 28 in Eastern Germany – the most Godless place on earth?

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 10 comments

They are sending missionaries to eastern Germany. A recent study called Beliefs About God Across Time and Countries found that 52.1% of people asked whether they believed in God identified themselves as atheists. This compared with only 10.3% in western Germany. Indeed, the survey was unable to find a single person under the age of 28 in eastern Germany who believed in God. Obviously there are some – I think I may have even met some once – but the survey was unable to find them. On the face of it this is an extraordinary finding and it is something that needs some careful explanation.

My last talk is now a podcast: “Free Will?”

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 3 comments

My last public talk which I gave, on free will, has now been made into a podcast which can be heard here. The talk, given to Portsmouth Skeptics in a Pub on 14th June 2012, was a nice informal gathering of about 50-odd people of varying skeptical persuasions. I have not listened to it yet, but the Q and A was an interesting and challenging time with some good questions which I think I dealt with pretty well.