The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis
No, this isn’t a post about Star Trek. It is about something that sounds just like the title of this post: the con, which originally stems from confidence man. And that is worth thinking about. Tobias Buckell linked to an article about research which shows that a pundit’s popularity correlates not with their knowledge or accuracy but [...]
I am grateful to Michael Zimmerman and others who have pointed out that the $10,000 prize offered to someone who proves evolution before a judge is (1) just the same guy who has made this offer in the past, (2) an offer from someone who does not understand what evolution is, (3) an offer that [...]
The phrase “con artist” developed from the phrase “confidence man” which later became shortened to “con man.” The original focus in the term “con” was not on the swindling of the victim per se, therefore, but on the means of doing so: gaining the victim’s confidence, often through the perpetrator speaking with confidence and in [...]
Wing Nut Daily recently featured a brand new article about a very old hoax, centered on the claim that chariot wheels have been found in the Red Sea. That anyone could see the photos of relatively new and shiny metal wheels and not be skeptical astonishes me. That anyone could simply take the word of [...]
Some of the most popular posts on my old blog site relates to Who’s Who scams, and since I continue to get e-mails very similar to the ones I talked about there, I thought it might be worth mentioning this topic again. Here is the text of one e-mail that I received very recently: Dear [...]
When does an openness to ‘taking things on faith’ become gullibility? Why should God view people favorably because they show themselves open to falling for claims that do not have evidentiary support? And if God does indeed value belief of that sort, why would a willingness to believe without sufficient evidence that an individual was [...]
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