Well, all this is interesting to me, anyway, and that's what matters here. The Internet is a terrible thing for someone like me, who finds almost everything interesting.
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Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Faith vs. evidence - The Atheist Experience
This is an hour-long TV show from Austin, Texas, so you might not want to watch the whole thing. I always think it's interesting (the shows are rebroadcast here on YouTube), but I thought the first part of this one was particularly good.
In the introduction, Jen Peeples takes a passage from the Bible and examines the historical evidence for it. There's actually quite a bit of evidence for this particular passage, but the point is to demonstrate the use of evidence. After all, there are many parts of the Bible where there should be corroborating evidence - assuming that the passage is true - but there isn't.
As I say, I thought it was particularly interesting. The callers,... well, sometimes I think there are better arguments to make with them - I certainly thought that a few times here - but it's easy enough to think of such things after-the-fact. And I'm regularly impressed by how calm and rational the hosts can be. (Usually, Matt Dillahunty is on the show. This time, it's Jen Peeples and Russell Glasser.)
If you're looking for brief video clips from The Atheist Experience, check out their Fan Appreciation Page, which contains excerpts from their shows.
One of my favorite uses of matching history with the Bible is about Noah and the flood. It turns out there was a major rise in sea level back in neolithic times, that would have cause worldwide flooding. Now I don't mean to point this out so fundamentalists can claim there was a flood, but it does explain why there were flood stories in many cultures.
ReplyDeleteAnd as global warming proceeds and the oceans rise even higher, we'll get to re-experience those floods. And ten thousand years from now they might even be telling new myths about our time - if civilization collapses. If men knew about climate change back in early Biblical times would they have even invented the Noah story? Or would they have invented science?