Tag Archives: Jesus

Another Arrogant Case of Christian Apologist Hypocrisy!

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Take a look at this:

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Hi, I’m Erik Manning.

If you’re like most of my readers, you’re a Christian who feels a conviction to share their faith. But, if you’re like me, you’ve found that our culture is growing increasingly skeptical towards the Gospel. According to many in society, Christianity is anti-science, intolerant, and based on fairy tales.

Not too long ago, I was sitting with a couple of co-worker friends, and the conversation switched to spiritual things. I started to share Jesus, and let’s say that things didn’t go well. They shot me to shreds.

One of my co-worker friends was an agnostic and thought that science disproved God. The other was a son of missionaries, but he lost his faith while he was in college and was now a Buddhist. Both raised objections that left me speechless at the time.

Rather than accepting defeat, this pushed me into looking for answers for why I believe what I believe. I was able to find a mentor who happened to be a philosophy professor and an expert on historical apologetics. He graciously put me on an intense self-study track and made himself available for guidance. I devoured literature, podcasts, lectures, and online classrooms produced by both Christians and skeptics.

As I did, my confidence grew tremendously. I’m no longer afraid of being asked hard questions. I realized that my faith wasn’t just experiential but also rooted in history, reason, and even science. This blog is a product of my past and ongoing studies in this area.

I aim to help doubters doubt their doubts and equip believers to be able to share their faith in a skeptical culture.

I tackle issues like the reliability of the gospels, the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, the foundation for moral values, ethical objections raised against Scripture, and other common skeptical objections to belief in God or Christianity.

What a load of crap! Let’s break that down, shall we?

If you’re like most of my readers, you’re a Christian who feels a conviction to share their faith. But, if you’re like me, you’ve found that our culture is growing increasingly skeptical towards the Gospel. According to many in society, Christianity is anti-science, intolerant, and based on fairy tales.

It’s not just evolution that discredits Genesis!

One of my co-worker friends was an agnostic and thought that science disproved God. The other was a son of missionaries, but he lost his faith while he was in college and was now a Buddhist. Both raised objections that left me speechless at the time.

Maybe because their Spiritual Orientation was different from yours? Did either of them say you shouldn’t be Christian? If they did, that was wrong.

If your Spiritual Orientation is CHRISTIAN….

If Your Spiritual Orientation is HUMANIST…

If your Spiritual Orientation is BUDDHIST…

Rather than accepting defeat, this pushed me into looking for answers for why I believe what I believe. I was able to find a mentor who happened to be a philosophy professor and an expert on historical apologetics. He graciously put me on an intense self-study track and made himself available for guidance. I devoured literature, podcasts, lectures, and online classrooms produced by both Christians and skeptics.

No, it wasn’t about accepting defeat, you bigot! It was really about respecting them as fellow human beings with autonomy like your own. And based on what I know about apologists, your mentor was almost certainly a con artist and he trained you to be one too, not an honest seeker of truth.

As I did, my confidence grew tremendously. I’m no longer afraid of being asked hard questions. I realized that my faith wasn’t just experiential but also rooted in history, reason, and even science.

Anyone can say that about his faith, whether Christian or not. Apologetics is about assuming a set of dogmas must be true and constructing arguments to support that presumption, which should be seen by everyone as unethical. 

An example of that being done to defend the Baha’i Faith, which nearly all Christians would reject as a false cult:

Adib Taherzadeh, CON ARTIST

I aim to help doubters doubt their doubts and equip believers to be able to share their faith in a skeptical culture.

Doubt their doubts? What does that even mean? That’s just an absurd cliche.

I tackle issues like the reliability of the gospels, the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, the foundation for moral values, ethical objections raised against Scripture, and other common skeptical objections to belief in God or Christianity.

Look I already know that the Gospels are NOT reliable: Teaching religion dishonestly

…that there is no independent historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Appeals to the accounts given in the four Gospels are circular reasoning and therefore invalid as a matter of establishing truth….

…a true foundation for moral values is based on empathy for fellow humans, not mere obedience to religious leaders and their questionable dogmas.,,,,

…..and as for ethical objections raised against Scripture:   Biblical Genocide and Pedophilia

This is the YouTube channel for that apologist:

https://www.youtube.com/@TestifyApologetics

Looking at his videos, I see he is obsessed with bashing Islam and the Prophet Muhammad and also slams Joseph Smith and the Mormon cult he founded….while also attacking Muhammad. Of course, I have attacked Islam a few times too, but I also understand why someone would convert to Islam. This other guy is an Islamophobe and that is repulsive to me.

I don’t care what you believe, as long as it is a private matter. But when you start asserting your religion as absolute truth that all should accept and follow, I react badly to such attitudes.

Teaching religion dishonestly

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One of the things I so despise about Christian apologists like Josh McDowell is how blind they seem to be to their own stupidity or dishonesty. Case in point, the two completely different birth narratives about Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. I will present them one after the other, but with completely different names to show how utterly different and mutually exclusive they really are. People overlook the otherwise obvious only because they see the names of Jesus, Joseph, and Mary in the stories and because they associate those names with holiness, they assume the writings must be holy and therefore true. But in fact, at least one of the Gospel writers made falsehoods and thus defiled those names. A lie told in the name of Jesus is still a lie and thus dishonors Jesus.

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Debunking the Liar, Lunatic, or Lord argument

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One of the favorite arguments put forth by Christian apologists is that of “Liar, Lunatic, or Lord” in reference to Jesus. It was published by C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity, and later repeated by Josh McDowell in his works. Basically, it goes like this:

“Jesus claimed to be God. If so, he must have been God incarnate in order to be accepted as a great moral teacher. If he was NOT God incarnate, then he must have been either a liar (evil) or a lunatic (diseased in the mind) and by definition someone who is evil or diseased in the mind cannot be a good moral teacher, so the only logical conclusion is that Jesus must have indeed been God incarnate, and therefore his teachings were infallible and he was by nature superior to any other moral teacher that ever lived.”

This argument is completely bogus! And here’s why:

First, we know NOTHING about Jesus that came directly from him. Everything written about him, including all quotations of his words, are second-hand or third-hand sources. See my earlier blog entry for more details:

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/the-chain-of-abrahamic-religions-is-too-rusty-and-weak/

Second, it is perfectly possible for someone to teach good morals and yet be a con artist. Indeed, you wouldn’t expect someone to openly proclaim “I am a liar and am immoral, corrupt, and serve evil causes!” You would expect someone to USE issues of morality to attract the well-meaning but gullible followers that the con artist could exploit for his personal gain later.

Third, even most insane people have some elements of lucidity in their characters. There is not an absolute distinction between the insane and those of normal mentality. Mental illness has many different manifestations and degrees of severity.

Fourth, there is an incident recorded in the Gospels of Jesus cursing a fig tree just because it had no figs to give him at the time (and it wasn’t even the season for them) and the tree soon dies: Mark 11:14, 20-23, Matthew 21:19-21. He uses this irrational action as an example of the power of faith. Sounds like insanity to me!

Fifth, the same liar, lunatic, or lord argument could be just as well applied to the founders of every other religion, including those with teachings very different from Christianity. Yet to be a Christian, you must assume that all those other religions are false!

Quite simply, this argument is an appeal to religious and cultural prejudice. It is no more valid than arguments to support astrology, palm-reading, or belief in a flat Earth.