Bible Under Attack by Skeptic Professor: Film at 11! I think most of you probably know who Bart Ehrman is, right? He’s an agnostic, American New Testament scholar who has gained some popularity/notoriety over the past few years, writing & promoting books that purport to ‘correct’ the traditional, orthodox teachings and assumptions of Christianity. I’m […]
Everybody’s got “rights”. Just ask ’em! Rights to freedom of _________. Natural rights. Human rights. Civil rights. Property rights. Privacy rights. Abortion rights. Women’s rights. Gay rights. Marriage rights. Workers’ rights. The right to a minimum wage. The right to free healthcare. The right to clean air. You name it, and somebody’s gonna claim it. […]
When reading through and comparing the four canonical Gospels, Christian and non-Christian alike will sometimes wonder why the books aren’t in the same format and tell the same stuff. True, they do follow the basic style for biography in the ancient Greco-Roman world (which can be frustrating to us ‘modern’ people who want more complete […]
In Part 1, I began an excerpt from Sen. Jim DeMint’s book Saving Freedom wherein he explained the difference between having a secular society versus having a secular government with certain religious freedoms. This is clearly what America’s Founders envisioned and what we still have, for the most part, now. When I ‘interrupted’ the Senator, […]
One of the ongoing arguments in the American public square is just how “religious” is our country and how much of that religiosity is — or should be — allowed in our government & society. One side typically has talking points about the Establishment Clause in the Constitution and the Separation of Church & State […]
A day or two ago, a more liberally-minded friend sent me a message on Facebook. He pointed me to an article on HuffPo, which asked the question (prompted by liberal theologian / “social justice” activist Jim Wallis), “What Would Jesus Cut?” Of course, it refers to the federal budget and is a challenge to let […]
“[A] fair result can only be obtained by stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.” — Charles Darwin To most in the U.S., February 12th is known & celebrated as Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. But, to a growing number, that date has become Darwin Day, in honor of Charles Darwin. […]
Today, I continue what could be called “My Conversation with Michael the Heathen Gnostic.” As Michael and I traded comments about the Gospel of Thomas (among other issues), the issue came up of which were/was likely written earlier — those manuscripts that became the four Gospels in the Bible OR the Gospel of Thomas (GTh). […]
This is the continuation of a post that I pieced together from a forum discussion I had with a religious skeptic named Michael, but who gave himself the handle “Heathen Gnostic”. This particular thread has to do broadly with historical manuscripts and the canon of the Bible and more specifically with the Gnostic “gospels”. (I […]
Some time ago, I had an interesting discussion with a guy on a (marketing) forum about various aspects of Biblical reliability & canonicity, testing historical manuscripts, corruption in “The Church”, differences between major Christian branches, etc. It ran quite the gamut, with several threads going at once. At some point, I decided to start copying […]
