On Creationism

The Shroud of Turin is a length of linen cloth that bears a faint image of the front and back of a naked man. Supposedly this is the shroud that was used to wrap Jesus in. From Wiki: The documented history of the shroud dates back to 1354, when it began to be exhibited in the new collegiate church of Lirey, a village in north-central France.Whether the memo was actually sent to the Pope or not, it seems that at least its salient information, that the Shroud was being displayed as genuine when it wasn’t, was known by the beginning of 1390, when Pope Clement issued his very restrictive bull. Ulysse Chevalier dated it at the end of 1389, although Jack Markwardt suggests early August, on the grounds that although it mentions an appeal to the King to get the relic suppressed, it does not mention that the Bailly of Troyes, acting on behalf of the King, had failed to get hold of it on 15 August.  The shroud was denounced as a forgery by the bishop of Troyes, Pierre d’Arcis, in 1389. ... The m...

 This is a follow up to my last post , regarding the article: Loke, Andrew. ‘ The resurrection of the Son of God: a reduction of the naturalistic alternatives .’ Journal of Theological Studies, 60 (2009): 570-584. Last time I looked at how he tries to divide up the possible explanations for the resurrection. Now it is the empty tomb we focus on. My view is the empty tomb was made up later - after Paul was writing, given 1 Cor 15. Mark made up the women witnessing tomb, and had them tell no one specifically because they really did tell no one - they told no one because there was no empty tomb. I am going to skip some of his alternatives; I do not find them likely either. (7) Either (7.1), (7.2), or (7.3) is true:  (7.1) There was no crucifixion of Jesus in mid-first- century Palestine, in which case either 7.1.1. or 7.1.2. is true. ...  (7.2) Jesus was crucified in mid-first-century Palestine and he was not buried (Unburied Hypothesis; a possible scenario for this hypothesis i...

A common strategy among apologists is to divide "all possible" explanations for the resurrection into a set number of groups, and then disprove all the ones they do not like to - surprise, surprise - leave the resurrection as the only possible explanation. Greg Bord does it in a series of pod casts (the fourth is here , with links to earlier ones). Boyd says either it was a lie or a legend or it must be as the gospels say. Exactly what the Legend Hypothesis is he keeps vague. Oh, and he assumes the disciples considered Jesus to be divine from the resurrection, and his argument is based partly on how it would take a resurrection to persuade Jews of that time to believe such a thing. Apparently it does not occur to him that they believed Jesus was the Jewish messiah, a man appointed by God, and adopted as God's son. However in this post I want to focus on an academic publication - if only because it is easier to quote. The article is: Loke, Andrew. ‘ The resurrection of the...

The earliest Christians believe Jesus was a man appointed by God as the messiah, and hence adopted as God's son. This is a collection of Bible quotes that support that. The Other Davidic Kings All the kings from david's line were adopted as God's son: 2 Samuel 7:14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’”​ Psalm 2:7 I will tell of the decree:​ The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;​ today I have begotten you.​ ​ Psalm 89:20 I have found David my servant;​ with my sacred oil I have anointed him.​ ...​ 26 He will call out to me, ‘You are my Father,​ my God, the Rock my Savior.’​ 27 And I will appoint him to be my firstborn,​ the most exa...

Revelation says: Rev 21:13 There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. 14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Does that mean one gate has the name "Judas Iscariot" over it? Also, Jesus made this prophecy: Mat 19:28 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Did Jesus get is wrong? Or is Judas sitting on a throne right now, judging the Jews? Some contend that Matthias will have replaced Judas, but was Matthias one of the Twelve Jesus was speaking to in Mat 19:28? I do not think so. I have also seen Paul cited as the twelfth apostle, but it would be many years later before he converted, and some of those years he spent as an enemy of Christianity, so surely Jesus was not talking about hi...

 This is a response to an article, Science, Evidence, and the Resurrection, by S. Joshua Swamidass. https://peacefulscience.org/prints/excerpts/science-evidence-resurrection/ He is a scientist, but nevertheless starts by making a poke at science. Science is full of trust-like faith. We believe grand, counterintuitive things because we trust the accounts of trustworthy sources. Okay, sure, science does rely on trust. So does sitting on a chair; you are trusting that chair to take your wait. So does driving; you are trusting your fellow drives to stick to their side of the road. What it comes down to is whether that trust is warranted . I think it is in these examples. Swamidass wants us to think we can trust that the resurrection happened with a similar degree of confidence, and I really do not think that is the case. What is the evidence from which grew my trust? A brief and incomplete outline is included here. This evidence is not an answer, but it raises the question. All we need...

This is a claim that is used a lot, but is not actually true. There is a paper in Nature that came out just a few weeks ago and goes into a comparison of the genome of the Great Apes in detail. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08816-3 It uses some abbreviations that might not be obvious (and I hope I got right): HSA - Humans (Homo sapien) PTR - Chimpanzee (Pan troglodyte) PPA - Bonobo (Pan paniscus) GGO - Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) PPY - Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) PAB - Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) Turns out the differences are significant - rather more than 1% - but it very much fits the evolutionary model. "Our analyses dated the human–chimpanzee split between 5.5 and 6.3 million years ago (Ma; minimum to maximum estimate of divergence), the African ape split at 10.6–10.9 Ma and the orangutan split at 18.2–19.6 Ma ... Consequently, we estimated that the human–chimpanzee–bonobo ancestral population size (average Ne = 198,000) is larger than that of the human...

This is specifically about modern, mainstream Christianity. Some may not apply to certain fringe beliefs. In no particular order. Different beliefs Different Christians have significantly different beliefs. By significant, I mean differences worth going to war over. If Christianity was true, and its adherents were really in daily commune with God, they would all have the same understanding of their religion. Contradictions in gospels Contradictions indicate the stories are at best heavily embellished, and at worst simply made up. The women who saw the empty tomb told no one in one account, and ran to tell people in another account. The risen Jesus went on ahead to meet the disciples in Galilee in one account, and appeared to them in Jerusalem and told them to stay in the city in another. Plus, two wildly different nativity stories. No trinity The trinity is a fundamental tenet of Christianity, but is missing from the Bible except in the most obscure verses. Why did Jesus never make it ...

Four Metal Kingdoms This was a vision Nebuchadnezzar had and Daniel interpreted.  Dan 2:31 “Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. 32 The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. 34 While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth. This is understood to be four different kingdoms. It is likely this is derived from Hesiod's ages of mankind; golden, silver, bronze, and iron. This can be seen in the fourth Sibyll...

The myth is that Israel was established by Abraham, a man who worshipped one God, and later saved from slavery in Egypt by Moses, who also worshipped this one God. But what if these were stories made up later, after the Israelites became monotheistic. And perhaps David was an anomaly, like Akhenaten in Egypt... The reality is that Yahweh was originally considered a part of the Canaanite pantheon, which was headed by El. Traces of this are still present in the Bible. For example, here we read about El, the Most High, assigning the various tribes to his sons, with the Israelites assigned to Yahweh, the Lord. Deut 32:8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,​ when he divided all mankind,​ he set up boundaries for the peoples​ according to the number of the sons of Israel.​ 9 For the Lord’s portion is his people,​ Jacob his allotted inheritance.​ The Bible was written by the priests of Yahweh. They wanted the people to worship Yahweh, not the other gods. How many kings of Is...

 The Book of Joshua is mostly about the conquest of the Canaanites. It takes place after Moses has died, and describes the military campaign of the Israelites. They made a treaty with the Gibeonites (supposedly tricked into thinking Gibeon was a distant city), and the other Canaanites joined forces and attacked Gibeon. The Gibeonites asked for help. Joshua 10:9 After an all-night march from Gilgal, Joshua took them by surprise. 10 The Lord threw them into confusion before Israel, so Joshua and the Israelites defeated them completely at Gibeon. Israel pursued them along the road going up to Beth Horon and cut them down all the way to Azekah and Makkedah. 11 As they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, the Lord hurled large hailstones down on them, and more of them died from the hail than were killed by the swords of the Israelites. So the enemy was already defeated, the Israelites just needed more time to slaughter the defeated armies. 12 On the day the Lor...

The Jewish expectation for the messiah was a man who would be the new king of the resurrected kingdom of Israel. The messiah was the king of the Jews, adopted by God as his son. This was true of all the kings from David onwards, and the expected messiah was no different. He, of course, had to therefore be a direct male line descendant of David, as the gospels of Matthew and Luke are at pains to establish. This is what was expected of Jesus. Matthew 2:6 "‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” Matthew 27:42 “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. Luke 1:32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never en...

Conventional wisdom is that Jesus said we should pay taxes. Here is the relevant verse: Mark 12:17 And Jesus said to them, “Pay to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were utterly amazed at Him. Taken out of context it surely looks like Jesus is telling his fellow Jews to pay taxes to their Roman oppressors. But when we look at the context, it is quite different. Jesus is showing his distain both for money and for all things Roman. The verse is not Jesus telling people to pay taxes, the verse is Jesus sticking two fingers up at Roman authority. Jesus divides the world in to things that matter - "to God the things that are God’s" - and things that do not matter, the profane - "Pay to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s". Look at the question is the greater context of verses 13 to 27. The first half is the Pharisees asking a question that they hope will ensnare him, in the second half the Sadducees do the same. In both ...

There is an account in Acts 5 of God striking down two people, Ananias and his wife Sapphira. Acts 5:1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. 3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” 5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. 7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked h...