Category Skepticism

Me and Koresh vs the Gospel Writers and Jesus

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 43 comments

Christian:

Why is it more probable that your god exists than man made him up?

We have an exceptionally high prior probability that your god is false given that we both believe that every other god claimed to be true (before and after) is false. Thus, on prior probability, the JC God is HIGHLY unlikely to exist. How does the Christian overcome this? They have to provide high CONSEQUENT probability. ie Evidence. But this is poor. Let’s take the four Gospels, written by unknown people at unknown dates in unknown places with ex post facto agendas to evangelise, at least 40 years after the person they are writing about and whom they have never met, has died.

Guest Post: Being an Atheist in the midst of Malawian Witchcraft

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 2 comments

This is a fascinating account of someone I met on facebook who has interesting things to say with regard to religion and society in a part of the world which is easy to misunderstand for someone like me. I found mention of sleep paralysis interesting as I have suffered a few times with this and my sister had it badly for years. It is prevalent in African folklore and I can see how it must contribute to ideas of the supernatural.

Anyway, here is an insight into being nonreligious in a very religious and superstitious context:

Cracking review of The Nativity: A Critical Examination

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 2 comments

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 convince a few of you to spend your money and time trusting that you would have a similar experience as I have.

“Why I am an atheist” – Guest Post by The Thinker

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 217 comments

The Thinker has guested here in the past and has been a frequent visitor to these commenting shores. Check his “Why I am an atheist” post out which comprehensively sets out his reasons for adopting his worldview. Excellent stuff, as ever, from him. Please check out his great blog (Atheism and the City), which I often do (if I could sort out a proper blog roll on this website, he would be on it, but I am struggling). My post in this (so far) short series can be found here.

The Exposing Pseudoastronomy Podcast takes on the Star of Bethlehem … with Me, Aaron Adair!

By Aaron Adair • • No comments

As part of the continuing efforts to get the message out about the Star of Bethlehem and the failure to explain it with astronomy, I was interviewed on the Exposing Pseudoastronomy podcast, run by Stuart Robbins, an young planetary scientist and skeptic. In the past, the podcast has tackled lots of material from Coast to Coast AM and some of their top guests, such asRichard Hoagland, in great but comfortable detail. That should be enough reason to subscribe to this skeptical outlet.

Meaning is an Illusion

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 25 comments

The “meaning” of life comes purely from emotional experience, which is chemically based. We know that emotion, and even spiritual experiences, are chemical in nature. It is already possible, using current science, to use drugs and/or direct manipulation of the brain in order to induce “spiritual” experiences.

The Star of Bethlehem in the News

By Aaron Adair • • 7 comments

It’s been a while since I have posted, but I have been super-busy with getting my PhD and other research-related activities. But there has been some great news when it comes to my work on The Star of Bethlehem. Over on Amazon, the reviews have been very positive, with one exception–though that person has proven to not be a charitable reader to put it nicely.

That SOB sure is worth reading about

By Aaron Adair • • 1 comment

[Just to remind readers that the book I have recently edited, written by contributor Aaron Adair, called The Star of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View. is out now in all formats from a variety of sellers. It is a great book, and one which Richard Carrier has said is “awesome”. Please support our work by buying it! It’ll make an awesome Christmas present! Over to Aaron’s launch piece for those who missed it – JP]

The Star of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View — My Upcoming Book

By Aaron Adair • • No comments

Nearly two millennia ago, a story was told of a wondrous star in the heavens, beaming forth to proclaim the birth of an infant, destined to rule. Coaxing priests from an eastern kingdom to travel in search of this infant, the object led them to their destination and allow for the worship of the savior of the world.

Or so the story goes. But did it really happen, and if so, what was this magnificent star? A comet? An exploding star? An astrological portent? Something more bizarre?

Bill O’Reilly is #killingjesus Scholarship–A Short Review

By Aaron Adair • • 2 comments

This week the next big book in Jesus scholarship hit the stores. Well, I guess it’s big in the sense that it is attached to a well-known name, Fox News’ host/anchor/pundit Bill O’Reilly. Earlier I had heard about his book, Killing Jesus, which was a bit easy to make fun with since the artwork for the cover suggested who the murder was, and his previous major book with a similar title, Killing Lincoln, was considered so riddled with factual errors that Lincoln-connected museums were not willing to sell it.

Texas mega-church learns the hard way that God alone is a useless defence against disease

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • No comments

This report in The Freethinker details the importance of a robust vaccination programme for the health and wellbeing of citizens across the globe. This is science (bitches – ooh, Dawkins, so rude) and this is how it helps progress.

Or, this is backward church anti-vax thinking, and this is how it hinders progress.

It is no surprise that something like this has happened. In fact, I believe we had a measles outbreak earlier this year in the UK (esp. Wales) due to a lack of vaccination in certain demographics.

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

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 4 comments

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. However, Jason Colavito had discovered a slightly older reference. From there, I continued the search.

Stephen Law responds to Randal Rauser on Believing Bullshit

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 11 comments

This is from Stephen’s SIN post. i have posted an excerpt. Check out the rest here.

A while ago the well-known Christian apologist and blogger Randal Rauser posted a very long review of my book Believing Bullshit on his blog. You can find Rauser’s review here.

While making a few nice comments about the book, Rauser was generally very negative. He posted the same review on the amazon page for my book and gave the book just two stars.

The Haunted Egyptian Statue–Good Vibrations?

By Aaron Adair • • No comments

Several months ago it was reported that the Manchester Museum had an oddity on its shelf. This wasn’t the sort of thing that was from an unknown yet gone civilization, its traces beyond the ability of archaeologists to explain or place into history, but what appeared to be the inexplicable motion of a very old statue. More recently it has become news because of the viral video of its motion using a time-lapse camera. What we see is that, slowly through the day the statue, which is from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (~4000 years ago), slowly rotates about 180 degrees. And by slowly, I mean it takes hours or days.