Sunday School MAR 25, 2012

Yep! Here we are!

Remember to follow the Think Atheist Radio Show on Twitter and Facebook for show news and features plus Sunday School links throughout the week! I've started a feature called Bookmarks on the Think Atheist Radio Show Blog, posting some thoughts on all the books we read in order to prepare for the show. I've posted another edition of Bookmarks, our series on books we're reading to prepare for the show. This one is on tonight's guest Dr. Bart Ehrman's new book, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. There's some problems with the book, but it's still a must read because Ehrman is the only New Testament and historical Jesus scholar that's doing any kind of engaging with the mythicists' arguments. Read this edition of Bookmarks to learn more.

Hey guys, if you have any suggestions for who you think we should interview– whether they have a book coming out, released a book recently, or have never written a book!– let us know by using the contact form on the TA Radio site and we'll see what we can do about bringing them on to talk to us! We'd love your input!

And of course as mentioned already, this week we're featuring our interview Dr. Bart Ehrman. Dr. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A scholar of the New Testament, he has both a Masters of Divinity and Ph.D from Princeton Theological Seminary where he received magna cum laude honors. He has written numerous scholarly and popular level books on the New Testament, early Christianity and the question of the historical Jesus (HJ). His popular level books are eminently readable introductions to the field of New Testament studies and HJ scholarship. His books Misquoting Jesus, Lost Christianities, and Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium are particularly well recommended. The interview will be available at ThinkAtheistRadio.com at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern tonight and then at any time after that. I'll update this page here with the link to the show page right at show time! We discussed the methodology HJ scholars use to peel back the layers of the Gospels and reconstruct their view of who Jesus was and what he is likely to have done and said.

Alright, alright, get to the links; I hear you! :)

Let's get this out of the way immediately. Reason Rally! Did you go? Say so in the comments and tell everyone what you thought about it. Were the speakers/entertainers good? Did it rain a lot? Did you get to meet some peeps?

Before the event, earlier in the week, PZ Myers posted to his blog with his thoughts on the inclusion of Senator Tom Harkin and Bill Maher in the event owing to both their decidedly unreasonable positions on certain things. Others disagreed. For them, it was a rally for secularism, and that could include people who we might think hold views counter to reason on other issues. Hemant Mehta asked if we would deny President Obama the opportunity to speak simply because he identifies as a Christian and has supported faith based initiatives and prayer breakfasts. American Atheists President David Silverman wrote to offer why we need a reason rally.

Classy as always, the Catholic Church puts legal pressure on a clergy abuse survivors network in an apparent attempt to shut them down or at least reduce their effectiveness.

This is your brain on fiction. Turns out stories stimulate the brain in unique ways and may even be able to change how we act in life.

Rowan Williams flees the sinking ship. Of the nine times that the Archbishop of Canterbury has resigned, all but two have been in the 20th century. The sixth time in a row that the man in that position has resigned, prior to the 20th century only two had ever resigned, and neither of them was within 500 years of the present. A sinking ship indeed!

So I think we all readily acknowledge the evil of Hell as a doctrine, but have you considered that Heaven is just as evil?

What are the mysteries left to discover within our own solar neighborhood?

Jerry Coyne wrote a piece on free will for a special feature in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Russell Blackford wrote at Talking Philosophy to offer some thoughts on Coyne's piece. (follow the Coyne link where you'll find links to the other submissions in the special feature; fascinating reading)

Last week alone over 2,600 weather records were broken, including over 1,000 new high temperature marks nationwide. This will go down as the 4th warmest winter on record.

A new supernova was spotted popping off in a nearby spiral galaxy and is being closely monitored (note: "nearby" in the context of space is 35-40 million light years away [a light year being about 6 trillion miles! start counting right now, one per second for 24 hours, and it would take you more than 31,000 years to get to 1 trillion seconds. "nearby" LOL])

So neutrinos have been reigned back in under the speed of light, but can they be of use to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence?

Saturn's icy moon Dione 'may be active' according to new images from Cassini.

News out this week is that the Dutch Roman Catholic Church 'castrated at least 10 boys' back in the 50's to rid them of homosexuality.

Does 'militant secularism' exist? One things for sure "If you turn on the news tonight and hear of a bomber slaughtering civilians anywhere from Nigeria to the London Underground ... the bombers will not be readers of Richard Dawkins."

The connections in the brain may be the key to understanding that organ. (The piece features a good deal of talk about the work of neuroscientist Dr. Sebastian Seung whom we interviewed at the release of his recently published book on the topic of the brain's connections and what they might mean for understanding of ourselves. Check that out to hear him discuss these questions and this new branch of science.)

A revision to some temperature measurements doesn't change global warming.

Why women need secularism.

A new survey released by the Pew Forum indicates that more people feel that politicians talk too much about religion.

Issues of language, lexicography, culture, taxonomy, and biology played a role in a discussion that took place this week on the question of whether humans are in fact apes or that that's not precisely accurate. Coyne kicked things off to say yes. Hawks said no. Then Wilkins sided with Coyne. Brian Switek pointed out that in a certain relevant sense, we're all fish too.

It's no secret that Jesus is supposed to have ministered to the poor and downtrodden. But why are the overtly religious Christian conservatives putting out a budget that prominent religious leaders are denouncing as immoral and irresponsible?

Astronomers in Chile train their telescope on an area of the sky about eight times the size of the full moon (but only .004% of the entire sky) and park it there for 55 hours. The result? Mind freaking blown! This is a must see! Seriously, as a visitor to this blog, if you're the kind of person I think you are, you WANT to see this. And check out Ethan Siegel's post where he's embedded a couple of great videos, one that explains just where the portion of sky is located and another that zooms in and pans around the monster 17,100x11,000 pixel image!

A post on the Black Skeptics blog calls out racism on the RichardDawkins.net forums.

Researchers solve a Darwinian puzzle of mimicry.

In this age of ignorance, idiocy seems to be our new national goal.

What warrant is there for belief in God?

Our guest on the Think Atheist Radio Show, Dr. Bart Ehrman posted at the Huffington Post to publicize his new book Did Jesus Exist? with a piece on the subject of the question of an historical Jesus. Historian and philosopher Richard Carrier took issue with much of Ehrman's piece, calling him out for the commission of several fallacies and errors of fact. We'll have him return to the show soon (he's joined us before). We'll have Dr. Carrier talk to us about where he believes historical Jesus scholars like Dr. Ehrman go wrong in the context of discussing Dr. Carrier's new book Proving History. Remember, you can schedule email reminders so that you don't miss any of our upcoming shows!

How religion's demand for obedience keeps us in the Dark Ages.

Jason Rosenhouse's Evolution Blog has been featured on Sunday School many times before. Now he's talking about his experiences going to creationist conferences over the last ten years. Much of what he's found is curious and surprising.

FOX News literally scares this woman to death.

American Christians and their all too frequent persecution complex.

An excellent long read examining whether theism provides the kind of things that theists claim atheism lacks when it comes to morality.

Comment by luvtheheaven on March 25, 2012 at 3:55am: My dad, 20-year-old brother and his same-age girlfriend (college sophomores) went. I'm stuck further away at college and couldn't go. It was rainy and James Randi you couldn't hear a word he said which disappointed my brother because he was excited to hear him. My dad said Richard Dawkins was amazing and he and PZ Myers were good speakers, and all the entertainers were entertaining... and there were some not quite so eloquent speakers who were super passionate so it was still really enjoyable to watch them. But it was kind of bad weather - my brother's girlfriend got very cold and kind of wanted to leave early but didn't want to make my dad leave too early so she suffered through it (she is an atheist & skeptic too though like my dad & brother & me)... and they had to stand up the whole time and so it wasn't like 100% optimal. :P That's what I heard as a basic report from my dad lol. In case any of you were curious. All in all I still wish I could have been there.

And I saw a few pictures of the event here:

My dad, 20-year-old brother and his same-age girlfriend (college sophomores) went. I'm stuck further away at college and couldn't go. It was rainy and James Randi you couldn't hear a word he said which disappointed my brother because he was excited to hear him. My dad said Richard Dawkins was amazing and he and PZ Myers were good speakers, and all the entertainers were entertaining... and there were some not quite so eloquent speakers who were super passionate so it was still really enjoyable to watch them. But it was kind of bad weather - my brother's girlfriend got very cold and kind of wanted to leave early but didn't want to make my dad leave too early so she suffered through it (she is an atheist & skeptic too though like my dad & brother & me)... and they had to stand up the whole time and so it wasn't like 100% optimal. :P That's what I heard as a basic report from my dad lol. In case any of you were curious. All in all I still wish I could have been there.

And I saw a few pictures of the event here:

https://twitter.com/ReasonistPrdcts

His most recent tweets.

Comment by luvtheheaven on March 25, 2012 at 3:59am: Oh the Greta Christina post on why Heaven is evil is brilliant. Thank you for that. Reading now. :P Loving it.

Comment by Nelson on March 25, 2012 at 4:03am: Thanks for the comments Emily! (It's Emily right? I swear it's Emily. I see you around Twitter! LOL. Apologies if not!)

And thanks for the perspective on the RR. That's pretty much what I'm hearing from others. I'm glad you enjoyed the link to Greta's post! :)

Comment by Stephen Charles on March 25, 2012 at 5:55am: Great as always Nelson, Loved the two neuroscience posts, made for really interesting reading.

Comment by wyocowboy on March 25, 2012 at 2:02pm: great stories like always...I have concerns for the interview tonight with Bart Ehrman. I have read two of his books: Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why and Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them). The books contridict themselves within the books. I had written a letter to him and stating that the contridictions and that he lost my respect when he stated in one part of his book that Josephus's writing about jesus could not be trusted because we know today that it was not written by Josephus but a bishop. Then in a chapter on the proof of jesus existence he uses Josephus as proof of jesus's existence. I will not read any more of his books. In the book "Misquoting Jesus..." he talked a lot of how the bible cannot be historical but I believe he wrote "Why and Jesus, Interrupted..." because I suspect he had gotten backlash because of what he had written and now the information is avaivable to the public. Bart did not respond to any of my questions from my letter in regards to thses matters. I am sure he gets a lot of letters but I have had more famous people respond my letters.

Comment by Gary Bergeron on March 25, 2012 at 2:36pm: Oh! The Sextans deep field photo and video by ESO VISTA was flipping awesome!

Thanks Nelson! :)

Comment by Nelson on March 25, 2012 at 2:57pm: I'm not one to defend everything Ehrman writes, one need only read my thoughts on this newest book of his to see that, but what you're saying doesn't make much sense to me at all. And it appears that, whether it's his fault for not being as clear as he could or your fault (or a combination of both) I can't say but, you've misunderstand the thrust of Misquoting Jesus entirely.

In Jesus, Interrupted this is what he says about Josephus and Jesus (pages 149-150):

In Misquoting Jesus this is the only mention of Josephus in the entire book (page 14):

So you'll have to explain just what it is that you're referring to when you refer to a contradiction between the two books regarding Josephus' value to the historian when attempting to discern an historical Jesus and what he is likely to have said and done.

As for your misunderstanding of Misquoting Jesus, the book makes only the case that the documents cannot be taken at face value as literal and inspired history and that they have been changed from their autographs by copyist scribes owing to the copyists' religio-socio-political agendas, not that the books of the Bible are utterly worthless from an historical standpoint. Indeed, the entire final chapter only makes sense on the assumption that Ehrman understands that the documents are still valuable as historical sources. And he was already on record that the New Testament can be historically reliable if we're careful where in his previous book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet he first explained the methodology in use by HJ scholars and exposed the Jesus he believes the methodology, when applied, produces.

So... Ah haz a cunfoozed! LOL

Comment by luvtheheaven on March 25, 2012 at 8:05pm: It is Emily. You're right. ;)

Emily Karp/luvtheheaven on twitter all the time, yes. :D Usually tweeting about other things like vidding and not atheism too much though.

Comment by Nelson on March 25, 2012 at 8:08pm: I KNEW IT! lol. I think when I've probably seen you around is when you've entered our book giveaways... Does that make sense?

Comment by Ron V on March 25, 2012 at 8:45pm: I have enjoyed Ehrman's books.

Thanks.

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