Oh, the sense of pride and worth it brings when you know that you have avoided being duped, unlike the vast majority of people. That sense is perhaps responsible for more people getting duped than is any actual act of deception. I noted once before the similarities between mythicists and birthers, but seeing some of the responses to the release of the president’s long form birth certificate today, I couldn’t help but observe the similarities again. Aaron Rathburn discusses the... Read more

Rachel Held Evans is organizing a Christian Unity synchroblog. Click through for details. It will focus not only on civility of discourse, but also working together across ideological divides on things that we can hopefully agree on  – like the importance of people having clean drinking water, and the need to raise money to help accomplish that. In related news, John Byron challenges the myth of the church’s golden age; Rachel Held Evans and Tripp Fuller talk about sex, salvation and... Read more

Calling what Thom Stark has written a “book review” rather than a “book” would probably give an inaccurate impression. He has engaged Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God by writing a book review that is a full book-length treatment of the topic. Stark’s response is titled “Is God A Moral Compromiser?” If you want samples, Otagosh shares a couple of quotes from Stark’s review, and it is also highlighted at Undeception. Read more

BioLogos has posted a video addressing Intelligent Design from a Christian perspective. Untitled from BioLogos Foundation Inc on Vimeo. I would have made a different point than the host of the video does in her comparison between “Christian music” and ID’s supposedly “Christian science.” In fact, “Christian music” doesn’t involve Christians coming up with their own system of tonality, but involves Christians using generally accepted tonality, chord progressions, instruments and styles for the enjoyment and benefit of Christians (or sometimes... Read more

Although mythicists are primarily focused on spreading unpersuasive ideas about Christian origins, at least one mythicist has decided to do the same in relation to the Mandaeans. Salm makes claims about the Mandaeans and Gnostics that are demonstrably false in his recent interview on Vridar. Mandaean sources consistently view celestial powers such as the sun, moon, planets and zodiac as malevolent, not positive as Salm would have us believe. They identify the sun with Adonai, the God of the Jews,... Read more

Magic tricks are fun, and having had the privilege of knowing a magician or two, I’ve also had the occasional trick explained to me. For some, knowing how any trick works seems to “spoil the magic,” but from my perspective, understanding how some tricks work only tells you what you should have known already – that you are being deceived. When you realize how that is being accomplished, I find that you appreciate the magician who can do it successfully... Read more

Earl Doherty, supposedly one of the better advocates for mythicism, has continued to provide evidence over at Vridar that all of my criticisms of mythicism are on target. Since Doherty is interacting with earlier numbered points of mine, I’ll use those numbers too here for ease of reference. #13:  The point is simply that the sort of language that mythicists interpret as referring to a celestial Jesus is applied to apparently earthly Christians in Ephesians. The only reason mythicists interpret... Read more

Two videos of interest via IO9. One is about the character Sam Weiss on Fringe. It is mostly the producers saying that they can’t comment, but there are still some interesting details for careful “observers.” The second is an interview with the youngest, and currently one of the most famous, Sith lords: Read more

Brad Matthies, a librarian and guru of all things copyright here at Butler, shared a few videos related to copyright and fair use, in a post about YouTube’s policies. This one is particularly good: Read more

Thanks to Michael Halcomb for the reminder that this is the last week to register for this year’s Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting at the super-saver rate. I’m already registered, but I figure others who put it off for as long as I usually do might appreciate a reminder. Read more