[irrelig]Continuing our hard-hitting inquiry into the nature of Truth with Kirk Hastings as our guide, we cover the following chapters: “Sixteen Additional Problems with Darwinian Evolution,” “What Does Microbiology Indicate?”, “Is the Concept of Intelligent Design Scientific?”, and “Superstition, Philosophy, and Religion.”

Do Kirk’s arguments fare any better than they did in the last episode? Could they possibly fare any worse? Has he gained any scientific understanding at all? Does Chuck answer more of your questions from Facebook?

Find out here.

And if you can’t get enough of those lovable Evidence 4 Faith guys, check out Joe and Emma’s E4F takedown podcast on Meat Mutant.

[chuck]Well, Kirk Hastings has noticed our recent podcast series. He gave his own book a 5 star review on Amazon, with the following commentary:

★★★★★ READERS PLEASE NOTE!, September 1, 2012
By Kirk Hastings

Please note: For the interests of all fair-minded people out there, I would like to point out that almost ALL of the reviews posted here so far about my book have been put there by a coordinated group of disgruntled atheists at Irreligiosophy.com, a website dedicated to insulting and putting down anyone who believes in God. You will notice that all of these reviews contain nothing specific about what is in my book, but only generalized insults and condescending name-calling, which are the kinds of “reviews” the Irreligiosophy people specialize in. These people are principle-less haters, and full of prejudice, bias, and bigotry. Check out their website if you don’t believe me. Don’t be fooled by this biased hypocrisy.

Note that we’re not unprincipled, just “principle-less.” Kirk has now copy-pasted this “review” as a reply to every 1-star review on his book. Considering the material in the book itself, that seems so … appropriate.

Anyway, look for part 2 of our biased and hypocritical review on Tuesday.

[irrelig]Surprise! Kirk Hastings’ recent email drew me out of (semi-)retirement. After recovering from those withering electronic insults, I sat down with expert Hovindologist Matt W to review Hastings’ magnum opus, “What Is Truth?” We examined his many and varied claims about truthology, and how they relate to science and most especially “Darwinism.” In this episode — part one of a three-part series — we discuss Kirk’s conversion process and his absolutely unshocking failure to grasp even the basic principles of science and mathematics while he attempts to take down Darwinism. This series could also be entitled, “We read Kirk Hastings’ shitty rehashed creationist screed so you don’t have to.”

Kirk does get an A for effort, though, and should he succeed in his quest to demolish Darwin’s theory of evil-ution, he may ultimately end up with a Nobel Prize. History (or maybe the next episode, where we finish talking about the science portion of his book) will have to render a verdict on that score.

[chuck]Quick post to let you all know I’ll be on the Church of Awesome this Thursday discussing the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre, the darkest time in LDS history — well, for the gentiles passing through their territory, anyway. It’s a subject I’ve been wanting to research for a while now, and finally (with some prodding by the CoA guys) got down to doing it.

In the meantime, I’m still getting email from people who apparently don’t know we stopped doing podcasts 7 or 8 months ago. This one is from someone named Marcus Rodriguez, who has issued THE ATHEIST CHALLENGE, 10 questions with which to stump atheists.

My general answer is that with the possible exceptions of numbers 9 and 10, these are all remarkably stupid questions, and serve to demonstrate that the questioner has extremely limited knowledge of the world outside Christianity. A few examples: question #3 is a great demonstration of the “is-ought fallacy,” #4 shows the absolute idiocy of the questioner (hey moron, there’s this fancy new site that allows you to actually search the internet for shit you don’t know), #5 is a naked assertion, #7 conveniently forgets Sweden, Norway, and most other European countries, etc etc etc. But have at him.

Earlier this month I did a blog post on 10 questions for an atheist. http://bittersweetend.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/the-atheist-challenge/

Just wanted to give you alittle insight and background behind the questions.

[chuck]Out of the blue, Kirk Hastings/Grant Gardner sent me an email this morning.

Hey, thanks for all your publicity concerning my book “What Is Truth?”. Amazon.com has sold out of the first batch, and is ordering more to keep up with the demand. It’s selling like hotcakes!

Kirk Hastings
Author Extraordinaire

That last part is my favorite. Who was Kirk’s publisher for What is Truth? Why, PublishAmerica, infamous vanity press for … wait for it … people who can’t find a publisher.

[chuck]The good folks over at Church of Awesome (some of whom you may remember from the Mormon Missionary and Temple episodes) had a round table on the absurdity of the Atonement and invited me to join in. The result can be found here: The Atonement.

I think I was a little fuzzy from the beginnings of a sinus infection mixed with an off-brand energy drink, but I had a good time. Give it a listen for the rest of the crew in any case.