"Personal Experience"

The following editor's comment by Farrell Till is from the mailbag section of *The Skeptical Review* May/June 1994:

Ho hum, another Christian who has had a "personal experience"! If I had a penny for every Christian who has had a personal experience with Jesus, I could retire a rich man. The only problem, of course, is that "personal experiences" are purely emotional and psychological, so in terms of evidence or proof they are absolutely worthless. Muslims have "personal experiences" and so do Mormons, Hindus, Sikhs, and you name it. If it is a religion, it has its believers who have had personal experiences.

What Kind Of...Deity...?

From the Errancy Discussion list, 10-28-97:

TILL

...I have to wonder what difference it makes what the population of Bethlehem may have been. If the massacre actually happened [Mt 2:1-16], it would be bad enough if just one child was killed. Have you thought about posing these questions to biblicists: what kind of omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity would cause his son to be born in a place and circumstances that would cause children to be massacred, and why would such a deity take special efforts to see that his son, who is omni-everything himself and therefore eternal, was saved from the massacre but leave the other male children to be killed? Didn't any of their parents merit dreams in which an angel warned them to take children and flee? Wouldn't raising issues like these be more likely to cause readers to question their beliefs on this moreso than speculations about how many male children were killed?

Ezekiel's Failed Prophecy Against Egypt

An excellent example of biblical prophecy failure--from the Errancy Discussion list, 29 June 1997:

Yet, another Christian with his prophecy fulfillment claims.

ROB
There are many religious books in the world that have many good things
to say. But only the Bible has fulfilled prophecies-with more fulfillments
still to come. The Bible has _never been wrong_ in the past, and it won't
be wrong in the future. It does not even abrogate itself.

TILL
The Bible has _never been wrong_ in the past? What planet has this guy
been living on? I'll cite just one example of many prophecy failures in the
Bible. Ezekiel prophesied that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy Egypt and
that it would lay waste for 40 years, but this never happened.

The Bottom Line

The following are some of my comments from a discussion I had with a Christian:

You conveniently discard or have never even read the parts of the Bible that show Yahweh to be unjust, murderous and just a plain sick cad by any reasonable code of morality. I will bring some of these verses to your attention. I hope you will begin a critical analysis of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, because that is the only way you will arrive at the truth. [Only] looking for reasons to believe in any endeavor, religious or secular, is not a blueprint for finding the truth.

The Burden Of Proof Again

More common sense from the pen of Farrell Till.
From the Errancy Discussion list, 4-17-97:

TILL
Please get it right, Walt. I do not "maintain" that the universe is
eternal. I believe that matter itself is eternal and that this is a belief
that is more consistent with reality than the various theistic options.
(snip)

(DAVE 4/7) Farrell: Matter is self-existent? Prove it. 

TILL
Dave, God is self-existent? Prove it. 

(DAVE 4/16) Farrell: Ah yes, good proof. I guess I can play this 
game too - no, YOU prove it. Give me one LOGICAL or even 
REASONABLE piece of evidence to show that matter is self-
existent. If there isn't one, then why do you even entertain 
the idea?

TILL
There is a big difference here, Dave. You are asking me to prove 
the self-existence of something that we both know exists, while 
asking me NOT to demand that you prove the self-existence of 
something that cannot even be proven to exist. You can't see 
the difference? Just who has the greater burden of proof here?

Farrell Till

A Godoscope?

From the Errancy Discussion list, 4-18-97:

In my debate in Oklahoma City, I pointed out that existents that 
cannot be seen or otherwise detected with the senses can be 
confirmed by experimental evidence. An electron microscope, 
for example, can be used to magnify things that are undetectable 
by ordinary microscopes. I asked Lockwood if he knew of a 
godoscope that could experimentally confirm the existence of
God or angels, demons, and spirits. He never responded to the 
question.

Farrell Till

A Reasonable Answer To A Troublesome Question?

The following is my reply to an answer to a question that I had asked the local Church of Christ preacher concerning the Bible doctrine of an eternal hell. He had enlisted the help of an older preacher in answering this question and he published this answer in his weekly publication. Quotes from this preacher's article are in bold black letters--by the way, the local preacher never did respond to my reply:

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne 

A Reasonable Answer To A Troublesome Question, is an article written by Maurice Barnett published in the May 9, 2004, edition of Faith Builder. It was Barnett's attempt at answering this question that you presented to him (a question I had asked you): "Why would a God of love create a race of beings, knowing that He would have to sentence the vast majority of them to suffer forever in hell?" The question you presented to him is troublesome, but more important it is devastating to the truth of fundamentalist Christianity if it can't be answered satisfactorily. And Barnett has no satisfactory answer. He meanders around with a lot of irrelevant thoughts, but never even comes close to a satisfactory answer.