Doubts Aloud Podcast

Episode 15 – Show Notes

We enthusiastically mention the Unbelievable Discussion Group in London fairly often (see link at bottom of the notes). This episode we chat over the first 3 of 2019, which have each been corkers.

January - Cambridge scientist & Christian Denis Alexander and his well known work on theistic evolution, such as the book “Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose?” (the answer is ‘no’). We see if his theological work convinces us as much as we respect his science.

February – A friendly Abortion Debate between our Frances and Christian Bruce Blackshaw who is doing a PhD on the Ethics of Abortion at Birmingham University. How did they do? Listen out for that famous pianist and how humans uniquely have ‘rational substance’.

March - James Crossley on Mark’s Gospel. James is an Unbelievable regular, an agnostic and nowadays from St Mary’s University in London. He wrote on Mark (most famously on its dating) and now has developed his thinking somewhat. The talk and Q&A is available here, but sorry, it is poor quality
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oe5iu0cgv4mah52/20190304-193514.m4a?dl=0

Is That in The Bible?
Enjoy Leviticus 27 v1-7, we also mention Exodus 21 v22-25. Ed was shocked.

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Join the Facebook Group discussions:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023280847835278/
Meet us all in person at the monthly “Unbelievable Christian and Skeptic Discussion Group” in central London, see:

https://www.meetup.com/Unbelievable-Christian-and-Skeptic-Discussion-Group-London

Or give feedback and ask questions using : [email protected]

Join the Facebook Group discussions:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023280847We spent the show chatting with Frances’ long standing friend Richard Morgan. He tells us his story of faith which has had more turns than anyone else we have met. He has been an atheist several times as well as Mormon, evangelical, full-on Catholic and cultural Catholic. We explore the way it has left him with a view of knowledge in metaphysics that has all hubris and sure-fire confidence driven out. He challenges Ed on his more optimistic and moral view of gaining knowledge.

Find Richard on facebook, especially by joining the closed Unbelievable discussion group there:
www.facebook.com/groups/unbelievablejb/

Doubts Aloud Links:

Please leave us a review on iTunes and we will respond to any question asked there with the review.

Meet us all in person at the monthly “Unbelievable Christian and Skeptic Discussion Group” in central London, see:

https://www.meetup.com/Unbelievable-Christian-and-Skeptic-Discussion-Group-London

Episode 13 – Show Notes

It was a great privilege to spend time talking with Climate Scientist and Campaigner, Katharine Hayhoe, who is an evangelical Christian based in Texas. (Though, to be fair, she is Canadian!)

We asked Katharine questions related to each aspect of her work and outreach – as a Climate Scientist, a Campaigner and an evangelical in the Bible Belt. Here are some great links that arose from the discussion:
On a possible positive feedback loop that could accelerate global warming:

https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/15/

Katharine’s great TED Talk – “The most important thing you can do to fight climate change talk about it”

https://www.ted.com/talks/katharine_hayhoe_the_most_important_thing_you_can_do_to_fight_climate_change_talk_about_it?language=en#t-1430

And as a Christian - “The Bible doesn’t talk about climate change, right?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpjL_otLq6Y

Doubts Aloud Links:

Please leave us a review on iTunes and we will respond to any question asked there with the review.

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Join the Facebook Group discussions:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023280847835278/
Meet us all in person at the monthly “Unbelievable Christian and Skeptic Discussion Group” in central London, see:

https://www.meetup.com/Unbelievable-Christian-and-Skeptic-Discussion-Group-London

Episode 12 – Show Notes

We kick off with another chapter in our “Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith..” book. Chapter 32 “Did Jesus Predict His Violent Death and Resurrection?”. It proved an interesting case study in using historical arguments for such issues, and ended up with the chapter’s author needing to cast doubt on one gospel version of Jesus praying at Gethsemane to show the likely authenticity of another (where he was aware of his impending death before he should know).

Again we felt this was another ‘dud’ argument from the 50 Arguments for Faith book. We turned to our list of better arguments and Properly Basic Beliefs (PBBs) came up. Alvin Plantinga is the most prominent advocate of this approach. He sets out what PBBs are and why he thinks belief in God should be one …. Due to the Sensus Divinitatus, that inner knowing or sense or voice of God.

We set this out and then ran through some objections and how theists have responded. This overlaps with our Episode 8, when we discussed belief based on religious experience with the brilliant Stephen Law. Here we tried to cover other objections.

Finally we asked “Is that in the Bible?” regarding …. Atheists. We started with Psalm 14v1 and 53v1 which both say “The fool says in his heart ‘there is no God’ ”. It seems that this is not actual atheism being discussed. Passages like Romans 1v18 on suggest we can’t be atheist.

Some links we discussed:
ANDREW!!! Your meme on Jesus saying “What?” to eschatological manifestation ..kerygma … etc “ I don’t know the link

Ed mentioned how useful it can be to use the website www.biblegateway.com to select a single verse and then click “…in all English translations” just below it. You see about 70 translations and get the range of possible interpretations.



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Join the Facebook Group discussions:
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Meet us all in person at the monthly “Unbelievable Christian and Skeptic Discussion Group” in central London, see:
https://www.meetup.com/Unbelievable-Christian-and-Skeptic-Discussion-Group-London

(Note - 50 Arguments for Faith book:
“Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy and Science” by Mike Licona and William Dembski. It can be found on Amazon.)

This month we discuss Pragmatic Arguments and the History of Christianity. The latter is an area of expertise for our guest Steve Tomkins and he joined us right through the recording. Steve did a Phd on the subject and is now editor for the in-house magazine of a leading UK denomination. He is also a lot of fun.

We kick off discussing Ed’s appearance on the ’Unbelievable?’ Show of 20-10-2018
https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-A-tale-of-two-doubters-Austin-Fischer-Ed-Atkinson

Ed got the feedback he was fishing for, and then we moved on to the reason his discussion partner on the show, Pastor Austin Fischer, employs to stay in the faith: it is useful for him. Here is the Dostoyevsky quote from Austin’s book “If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.” We widened the discussion into general Pragmatic Arguments. These replaced the ‘dud’ argument last time from the 50 Arguments for Faith book.

These are not remotely convincing as Arguments, but Steve points out that they are not meant to be. We got on to the most famous example: Pascal’s Wager. Everyone has their take on this and we hope that we don’t disappoint. It is usually a fun topic, especially the likelihood that we will suffer infinite harm in hell.

Steve was on-form as he discussed Church History and what lessons we might take from it. Sadly we could have carried on for another hour and had to call time.

Find Steve on
www.stephentomkins.com (and watch out for Google changing it, adding a rogue ‘p’). He can be contacted there for shows.
His books:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stephen-Tomkins/e/B001JRURNI
His Guardian profile:
https://www.theguardian.com/profile/stephen-tomkins



Doubts Aloud Links:

Please leave us a review on iTunes and we will respond to any question asked there with the review.

Or give feedback and ask questions using : [email protected]

Join the Facebook Group discussions:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023280847835278/
Meet us all in person at the monthly “Unbelievable Christian and Skeptic Discussion Group” in central London, see:
https://www.meetup.com/Unbelievable-Christian-and-Skeptic-Discussion-Group-London


(Note - 50 Arguments for Faith book:
“Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy and Science” by Mike Licona and William Dembski. It can be found on Amazon.)

Episode 10 – Show Notes

It would be good to have listened to the last episode where we interview Chris Date on doctrines of hell. Here we put it into context using the question: which hypothesis better fits the observations of doctrinal development in the Bible
A. this is normal development of ideas in human culture
B. a divine agent is choosing to reveal doctrines bit by bit, like learning maths at school

This initially arose as we looked at the latest chapter in our 50 Arguments for Faith book, chap 30 “The Son of God”. The chapter correctly identifies Son of God as the Old Testament title for the anointed king of Israel and that initially Jesus was Son of God only in being messiah – ‘anointed one’ – and things developed from there, ending with Jesus viewed as God - a member of the Trinity.

Frances mentioned a great resource:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com

This doctrinal development theme then spread to the question of hell and afterlife and the devil, which we covered in Andrew’s ‘Is that in the Bible?’ slot. He selected Ezekiel 28:11-19 where we discussed whether this prophecy about the King of Tyre is also about the Demonic Fall as some later Christian theologians claim.

We recapped our discussions on Old Testament genocides from episode 2, and hence the developing character of God. We also revisited our ‘summer of atonement’ and doctrinal development there.

The Climate Endnote was a longer slot this time. October has been a big month in Climate news with the latest IPCC report with dire news, climate economists winning the Nobel prize and exciting new policy initiatives in the UK. We discussed where viable solutions now stand, and the role of the organisation Ed has joined, links:

https://citizensclimatelobby.org/

and the UK

https://citizensclimatelobby.uk/


Doubts Aloud Links:

Please leave us a review on iTunes and we will respond to any question asked there with the review.

Or give feedback and ask questions using : [email protected]

Join the Facebook Group discussions:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023280847835278/
Meet us all in person at the monthly “Unbelievable Christian and Skeptic Discussion Group” in central London, see:
https://www.meetup.com/Unbelievable-Christian-and-Skeptic-Discussion-Group-London


(Note - 50 Arguments for Faith book:
“Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy and Science” by Mike Licona and William Dembski. It can be found on Amazon.)

The main topic of the show is doctrinal development in the Bible, specifically on Hell. We quickly introduce the topic to leave maximum room to hear from our guest, Chris Date. Chris is a layman but now studying theology and he is a deep Christian thinker, in the same way that Andrew was a few years ago. Chris dived deep into the doctrine of hell as it really mattered, and matters now, to him as a believer. He has done his own research work on this and as a result became a key driver in a movement ReThinking Hell. We respect him greatly.

We discuss doctrines of hell, how they arose and wider issues.

http://rethinkinghell.com/

http://fuller.academia.edu/ChristopherDate

Doubts Aloud Links:

Please leave us a review on iTunes and we will respond to any question asked there with the review.

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Join the Facebook Group discussions:
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Meet us all in person at the monthly “Unbelievable Christian and Skeptic Discussion Group” in central London, see:
https://www.meetup.com/Unbelievable-Christian-and-Skeptic-Discussion-Group-London

After answering some feedback and chatting over Ed’s experience of a charismatic summer camp, we got down to the main topic of the show – religious experience. We discussed how believers typically believe based on this rather than rational arguments or observable evidence. … from Ed’s charismatic fellow-campers to top apologists and philosophers like William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga.

This set us up to enjoy a wonderful interview with Stephen Law (of ‘Evil God Challenge’ fame) who wrote a paper on just this topic a couple of years ago. We hear the argument in the paper and discuss challenges to it. Stephen concludes that it is not rational to believe in hidden agents like God or gods based on religious experience. Over to you Alvin …

This month’s links:

Ed at the camp New Wine:
https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Weekday/Inspirational-Breakfast/New-Wine-2018/Tell-me-why-you-believe-agnostic-asks-Christians-at-New-Wine

Clips of WLC:
https://youtu.be/Q78ahkiMtFk

Stephen Law’s 2016 paper :
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42637064.pdf

Doubts Aloud Links:

Please leave us a review on iTunes and we will respond to any question asked there with the review.

Or give feedback and ask questions using : [email protected]

Join the Facebook Group discussions:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023280847835278/
Meet us all in person at the monthly “Unbelievable Christian and Skeptic Discussion Group” in central London, see:
https://www.meetup.com/Unbelievable-Christian-and-Skeptic-Discussion-Group-London

Resurrection interview with Mathew Hartke

Episode 7 – Show Notes

Like the rest of the sceptical world in 2018 we had to indulge in a brief chat about Jordan Peterson.

We complete our ‘Summer of Atonement’ this month. Andrew gives us an overview of the theories Christians use to try to make sense of it. Frances also gives some thoughts on the full set of philosophical problems with the doctrine. Ed tries to tie it all together to see how it counts as evidence in the assessment of whether Christianity can be true. Can we leave it as ‘mystery’? Or see it as mere demonstration art without genuine substance?

Doubts Aloud Links:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023280847835278/

Please leave us a review on iTunes and we will respond to any question asked there with the review.

Or give feedback and ask questions using : [email protected]

Join the Facebook Group discussions:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023280847835278/
Meet us all in person at the monthly “Unbelievable Christian and Skeptic Discussion Group” in central London, see:
https://www.meetup.com/Unbelievable-Christian-and-Skeptic-Discussion-Group-London