The Atheist Experience The Atheist Experience Top 5 Calls of 2023
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Dec 25, 2023 A countdown of the most talked-about calls from 2023. Conversations probe the usefulness of religion versus atheist meaning-making. Debates cover historical evidence for Jesus, Pascal's Wager, and standards of evidence. Discussions tackle suffering, morality without divine reward, design arguments, evolution challenges, and why certain faiths are critiqued more sharply.
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Why Pascal's Wager Fails As Justification
- Pascal's Wager is a weak basis for belief because it ignores many gods hypothesis and arbitrary tests set by imagined deities.
- Jim Barrows and Johnny P Angel press callers to provide positive reasons or evidence for the Christian God rather than betting arguments.
Why Resurrection Claims Aren't Purely Historical
- Historians avoid supernatural explanations; resurrection claims are categorized as faith, not standard historical conclusion.
- Johnny P Angel emphasizes historical-critical methods (criteria of multiple attestation, dissimilarity) to evaluate Jesus' historical portrayal.
Learn Historical Criteria Before Claiming Historicity
- If you claim historical evidence, learn and apply the criteria historians use before asserting conclusions.
- Johnny P Angel recommends studying scholarship (e.g., Albert Schweitzer, Bart Ehrman) and methods like multiple attestation first.