Dinesh D'Souza on Christianity and School

"Children spend the majority of their waking hours in school. Parents invest a good portion of their life savings in college education and entrust their offspring to people who are supposed to educate them. Isn’t it wonderful that educators have figured out a way to make parents the instruments of their own undoing? Isn’t it brilliant that they have persuaded Christian moms and dads to finance the destruction of their own beliefs and values? Who said atheists aren’t clever?"

Dinesh D'Souza

What's So Great About Christianity

------------------------------------
Gosh, aren't atheists clever? Now they want children to go to school. How diabolical!

Alvin Plantinga and Warranted Christian Belief

The belief that a man called Jesus lived 2000 years ago and was crucified is a Christian belief.

How can such a belief be a properly basic belief - a belief that needs no justification?

This makes no sense.

It is Ramadan

This means that women will not be beaten with sticks until Ramadan ends.

See Ramadan compassion for details

Jesus as a miracle worker

Christians , for example James McGrath of Butler University Indiana, will often say things like this '.... it is clear that Jesus was renowned in his own time as a healer and exorcist. '

This statement can be found at Miracles

Of course, not one document can be dated before AD 65 which mentions Jesus in connection with healings and exorcisms.

This includes Christian documents.

Why is mainstream Biblical scholarship in such an appalling state that scholars can say that things are 'clear' , without producing one shred of evidence for their claims?

Can mainstream Biblical scholars say 'rigorous standards'?

If for 30 years after his death, not one member of the Elvis Presley fan club ever hinted at his remarkable tap-dancing feats, would mainstream Biblical scholars even think twice before claiming that it is 'clear' that Elvis Presley was renowned during his life time for his tap dancing?

James the brother of Jesus

Does any Christian in the first century AD claim a story about Jesus came from his alleged brother , James?

What sort of brother is it when even Christians do not cite him as a source?

The second gunman and Biblical scholarship

As we all know, a second gunman appeared from nowhere to shoot JFK and Connolly, and then disappeared from history, only to reappear years later in conspiracy theories.

In Mark's Gospel, Joseph of Arimathea appears from nowhere to bury Jesus , and then disappears from history, only to reappear when 'Mark' wrote about him.

The sudden unexplained appearance of Joseph of Arimathea is a useful way of showing that Jesus's body was not left to rot on the cross or be thrown to dogs.

In terms of historicity , how does Joseph of Arimathea differ from the second gunman?

Apart from the obvious fact that mainstream Biblical scholarship accepts the existence of Joseph of Arimathea, while denying that their standards of scholarship differ from those of JFK conspiracy theorists?

Biblical scholars

Douglas J. Moo is a Biblical scholar, with , I am ashamed to say, a doctorate from a leading British University.

On page 116, of his book on Romans , he writes 'The most we could say is that AIDS may be an additional manifestation of the wrath of God against rebellious and sinful humanity.'

An 'additional' manifestation? Just how many plagues does this God send against rebellious and sinful humanity?

Is Biblical scholarship really scholarship when proponents discuss whether or not AIDS was sent by God to punish mankind?

Richard Dawkins says theology is a non-subject. Is discussing whether or not AIDS was sent by God to punish mankind really a proper subject for British universities to spend their time on?

Obedience to God

Numbers 31
The LORD said to Moses, "Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people."
So Moses said to the people, "Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites and to carry out the LORD's vengeance on them.

Religious people will kill you if they think their god has commanded you to kill them.

They take their orders from their imaginary friend. And if their imaginary friend tells them to kill people, that is what they will do. It is called being devout.

Is this really anti-Semitic?

The BBC has posted a video designed to bring Judaism into disrepute. It allegedly depicts Jews warding off swine flu.

Does the BBC bother to think about the reaction this video will cause?

The brothers of the Lord

1 Corinthians 9:5
Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?

Who were the Lord's brothers that Paul mentions? Was Christianity really a family business where the brothers of Jesus knew they could make money for themselves and their wives if they preached Christianity?

Vision or hallucination

Acts 10 contains a ludicrous story that Christians believe, because it is in the New Testament, although it is clearly nonsense, that no grown up person should take seriously.


He (Peter) became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat."

"Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean."

The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."

This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.

NT Wright would say this was not an hallucination, because Peter knew perfectly well what an hallucination was and what an hallucination was not.

I guess there is nothing that Christians won't believe. If somebody claims to have seen food that was not there, they will say that it was not an hallucination, it was a 'vision'

Wright on the Resurrection Here a Christian explains that this bizarre story was not an hallucination, it was a vision.

A sheet containing all kinds of four-footed animals was not an hallucination, because it was a vision?

You have to laugh at these people....

Anti-discrimination laws

Religions have long been in the lead to fight against discrimination.

The Bible was one of the first documents to try to limit discrimination. In fact, discrimination was limited only to people in the following categories :-

Leviticus 21
The LORD said to Moses, "Say to Aaron: 'For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; no man with a crippled foot or hand, or who is hunchbacked or dwarfed, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles.

There was to be no discrimination against other people, well, against other men at least.

Miracles and the Book of Mormon

My article Miracles and the Book of Mormon article examines the Book of Mormon and the Koran and the Gospels and examines the parallels between them - the way all three works used the same method to create the fraudulent stories in them.