Show Notes

We continued our discussion with friend of ours Josh Parikh - a Christian Apologist who has always thought deeply about the issues and maintained intellectual integrity.

There were two Old Testament case studies that Josh included in his talk “A Tumultuous Period in Apologetics?” to the Discussion Group in London, and we were keen not to miss these out: the famous story of bears mauling 42 children and the patriarchy with misogamy in both the narratives and especially in prophets Hosea 2, Nahum 3 and most horrifyingly in Ezekiel 16.

We also covered some feedback on Part 1 concerning the American church and apologetics scene ... we gave the UK view on it and feedback from US listeners would be great.

Links:
“God: An Anatomy” by Francesca Stavrokopoulou
“Raw Revelation: The Bible They Never Tell You About” by Mark Roncace
“The Violence of God and the War on Terror” by Jeremy Young

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Show Notes
Josh Parikh is an old friend of ours having contributed to our Discussion Groups over many years as a Christian Apologist who has always thought deeply about the issues and maintained intellectual integrity. He has been on a journey, especially having engaged with Biblical scholarship. This has overlapped with his time at Oxford University and continued since graduating. Like many, he has remained a Christian and has moved in a ‘progressive’ direction. Josh recently gave a talk “A Tumultuous Period in Apologetics?” to the “Unbelievable Christian and Skeptic Discussion Group” in London, and we were eager to have him share that material on the show. Josh sees a crisis not just in the scandals such as with Ravi Zacharias but at a root conflict between the aims of apologetics in conservative Christianity and the commitments involved in genuine scholarship.

We had so much to talk about that we will need 2 shows to benefit fully from Josh’s wisdom.

Links:
We strongly recommended this podcast: “The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill”

Randal Rauser books in conversation with atheists:
“God or Godless?: One Atheist. One Christian. Twenty Controversial Questions.” by John W. Loftus and Randal Rauser 2013
“An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar: Talking about God, the Universe, and Everything” by Randal Rauser and Justin Schieber 2019

Josh recommends: “The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son – the Transformation of Child Sacrifice and Christianity: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity” 1995 by Jon D Levenson

YouTube clips :
The film Andrew mentioned -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLbDSxTUuIo
The apologist who previously was hot on resolving contradictions -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1cPnnz-Go

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

Show Notes

For Part 2 of our discussion of same-sex relationships, sexual practice and the Bible, we start with background and origins for the OT Law (we covered its interpretation in Part 1). One scholar has identified an evolution in the laws in Leviticus from a more lenient view to the harsh one found in the final text.
Frances has researched reactions to these laws in Jewish writings and that led to a wider ‘world tour’ or religious treatment of the issues.

Links:
See pp 291 & 292 here for ANE background
https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/325479/EBR_Homosexuality.pdf?sequence=1
And here for the possible evolution in the laws in Leviticus by Idan Dershowitz https://www.academia.edu/37294841/The_Secret_History_of_Leviticus_New_York_Times
Here is Dr Michael Brown’s commentary
https://archive.askdrbrown.org/library/creating-new-version-leviticus-support-gay-sex

Links for mediaeval and modern Jewish thought
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/2013/04/19/to-plant-or-not-to-plant-seed-the-truth-of-homosexuality-in-the-bible/
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/orthodox-judaism-and-lgbtq-issues/

Links used for the ‘world tour’ –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_themes_in_mythology
On Natural Law ethics the Reasonable Doubts episode was #61:
“The Curious Case of Robert P. George”.

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Episode 61 – Show Notes
Occam’s Razor shows us how simple explanations are superior to complex ones and so simplicity is a concept that might lead us to believe in God as this one simple concept – a supernatural personal agent – can explain all the complexities of the world. We try to assess this line of thinking, especially using the work of the Oxford Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne who favours the approach. This then leads into the doctrine of Divine Simplicity which was prominent in the Medieval church (eg Aquinas). Of course Andrew brings us down to earth with what the Bible says about God and his simplicity.

Links:
BBC In Our Time podcast on Occam
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007m0w4

Learned articles on Occam:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simplicity/
... and on Divine Simplicity
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/

To find a place where Swinburne’s ideas that Ed describes are set out without reading his book:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/
Start well down where it says “In place of a deductive argument, Swinburne develops .....”


The Unbelievable? Show which has Swinburne discussing with Bart Ehrman on suffering
https://www.premierunbelievable.com/unbelievable/unbelievable-10-jan-2009-the-problem-of-suffering-ehrman-and-swinburne/11625.article

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Episode 59– Show Notes

We had a great time with our guest Paul Thompson of the Skepticule Podcast. Paul has done a lot of research on St Nicolas and his afterlife as Santa Claus which we enjoyed. He also researched scams as part of the UK sceptical community and gave us the benefits by leading us through The Perfect Scam. So all good fun and games for the Christmas season.
Links:
The Unbelievable? Shows on which Paul has been a guest:
20 Nov 2010 – with Philip Yancey on "What Good is God?"
29 Jan 2011 – Human Value & Subversive Stories
Find the Skepticule Podcast in iTunes etc but sadly they are no longer producing new episodes.
To reach out to Paul, ask us by gmail or find him on the official Unbelievable? Facebook discussion group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/unbelievablejb
(you will find Frances and Ed fairly active there too)

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Episode 58– Show Notes

Andrew is on a roll again, reporting his research into flat earth beliefs in the Bible. Actually, it is just a component in a whole cosmology of how the ‘heavens’, earth and under the earth fit together. Spoiler – no turtles. This eventually moves on to Ed getting excited over whether Jesus was a flat earther. We can’t help but see how this leads to literalist Bible interpreters becoming flat earthers - as in members of the modern conspiracy theory – and how important they were in the rise of that movement.

Links:
The link with the picture that Andrew mentioned early on
https://pursuingveritas.com/2014/05/14/ancient-hebrew-cosmology/

The Dr Heiser 20 min video lecture that’s really helpful
https://youtu.be/CGQDa9Ojk64

Another discussion from 2 evangelicals if you want it
“Heaven & Earth • Episode 1 - What is the Old Testament referring to as "Heaven"?”
https://bibleproject.com/podcast/heaven-earth-part-1/

We mentioned Skydive Phil debating on this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6eEmfcMjDk

Finally the 2018 documentary film to google is “Behind the Curve”.

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Episode 57– Show Notes

We start with methodological naturalism and whether rejecting can be scientifically legitimate, as this is the next chapter in our 50 Arguments for God book. Chapter title: “The Scientific Status of Design Inferences”. We discuss the argument in the chapter for rejecting methodological naturalism when it comes to the ‘science’ of Intelligent Design. For us the boundaries of this ‘methodological naturalism free-zone’ is the problem.

This leads us on to considering if methodological naturalism doesn’t apply in science or in life. God is seen as intervening in the Bible. What are the implications? Is this what we see in the world? What about the idea that we might have heard in school assembly - we are God’s or Jesus’s hands and feet?

Links:
The book by Thom Stark that we mentioned: “The Human Faces of God” by Thom Stark and John Collins
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Thom-Stark/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3AThom+Stark

And “Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy and Science” by Mike Licona and William Dembski.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Evidence+for+God%3A+50+Arguments&i=stripbooks&crid=2JZMR7RRQTQ9P&sprefix=evidence+for+god+50+arguments+%2Cstripbooks%2C108&ref=nb_sb_noss

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Episode 56– Show Notes

We’re delighted to welcome SkyDive Phil back on the show. Not on vegetarianism as we’d trailed (please be patient) but on his recent work on the Kalam Cosmological Argument. The most prominent form of the argument, as defended by Christian apologist and philosopher William Lane Craig, states the Kalam cosmological argument as the following syllogism:

Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.

The conclusion is then used to fit God to that cause.

Phil has released a long video based on interviews with scientists, philosophers and mathematicians. It covered various ways the premises have been defended. Craig subsequently responded to the video using his podcast YouTube outlet and then Phil prepared a second video to reply to William Craig. Here’s the links to the Phil videos:

https://youtu.be/pGKe6YzHiME
and
https://youtu.be/femxJFszbo8

This was a massive amount of work by Phil and his team and the results are brilliantly helpful. It was great to chat through with Phil on the material, his experience in doing this and how the various participants (not least Craig) view such debate and discussion.

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