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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Episode 55 - Title Suggestions

1. God’s Body
2. Does God have a Body?
3. God really has a Body and we’re not joking
4. The one where God has a body

Episode 55– Show Notes
The idea we explore is that the Old Testament authors all thought that God had a body. For them He wasn’t an ethereal unembodied universal Being. We look at the evidence for this view and the reasons it seems so contrarian a view to take. There is wonderful history here hidden in the Old Testament and in the story of how views have developed since.

Frances shared an infamous legal case from the 19thC. Please see this link which includes a copy of the cartoon she describes:
https://www.secularism.org.uk/the-freethinker-blasphemy-trials.html

As is often the case we (well Frances & Ed, Andrew seems to know it already) gained immensely from “The Bible for Normal People” podcast. In this case episode 147. Here’s the YouTube version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aFnRpNQFhI


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Resurrection interview with Mathew Hartke

Episode 53– Show Notes
We start with an argument from our series on 50 Arguments for God’s Existence. This time
“The Argument from Degrees of Perfection” by Catholic philosopher Peter Freeft. The following link gives a summary.
https://peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm#4
We try our best to do the argument justice while discussing how it doesn’t work for us.
Somehow we drifted into mentioning the recent debate “Theism vs Atheism” between Jonathan McLatchie and Alex O’Connor. Here’s the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnIQFI1pYLM

This idea of God’s Perfection led us on to this pair of questions:
1) Would a perfect God create a perfect world?
2) Is this world perfect?

It opened up what the Bible says on God being perfect, which is not just Jesus’s words in Matthew 5v48 “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The Old Testament Yahweh doesn’t come across as perfect. We enjoyed the anger management in Exodus 33v3
The classic Christian response to why our world isn’t perfect while God is perfect is the Fall and Adam and Eve. We go back there again (sorry).


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