For the first episode of the second coming of Irreligiosophy, join Matt and Chuck as we tackle William Lane Craig’s arguments for the central claims of Christianity: the empty tomb and resurrection. I am willing to grant for the sake of argument that Jesus’s tomb was as empty as my rectal vault after a combo burrito from Pancho’s, but as we find out, the existence of an empty tomb does not necessarily lead to a conclusion of resurrection.

Source: Jefferey Jay Lowder, Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story: A Reply to William Lane Craig, The Empty Tomb, pp. 261-306, Prometheus Books, 2005.

[chuck]In observance of Brunalia, the folks at Meat Mutant have released their latest episode. It’s all about taking down Evidence 4 Faith’s ridiculous “Amazing True Biblical Prophecies” podcast, guest starring me.

The next chapter in our continuing series on “How Dumb Can Arguments for Christianity Get?” is live! The answer: pretty dumb indeed. We cover Kirk’s gaffes on the manuscript evidence for the Old and New Testament, discuss the Amazon reviews for “What Is Truth?”, dramatically re-enact some of Kirk’s Irreligiosophy comics, and engage in serious literary criticism of one of Kirk’s fan fiction stories.

All that packed into one hour of juicy podcasttainment. Don’t say I never gave you anything.

[chuck]Matt and I had some trouble lining up our schedules over the last week, so the next podcast will have to wait until next week. One alternative explanation, provided by Kirk “Grant Gardner” Hastings himself, is that we are afraid of his book, and don’t have the courage to expose ourselves to it:

The various nasty, negative posts in reply to this comment by me only serve to prove how incredibly childish and dishonest the atheist members of Irreligiosophy really are. Their reviews contain no intelligent content, only shallow put-downs, because they are not the least bit interested in reason, logic, or truth; they are only interested in insulting everyone who disagrees with them. This is clear evidence of very sick, dishonest, insecure minds. They are afraid of my book, because it reveals the easily verifiable truths about life and God that they simply don’t want to face. That’s why many of them haven’t even read it (even though they attempt to “review” it!) — they haven’t the courage to expose themselves to what it really says. Such people are little more than cowards and troublemakers, and they will get what they deserve out of life in the end.

Oh, I’ve exposed myself to it, Kirk. Repeatedly. See y’all next week.

[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.

[irrelig]Chuck’s sources: Q, the Earliest Gospel by John Kloppenborg and Jesus: According to the Earliest Witnesses by James Robinson
Leighton’s source: unknown, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say Wikipedia

For this episode, we discuss the hypothetical document Q, theorized to explain the near-verbatim similarities found in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark. We give some brief history about the theory and then quickly delve into what the Q community, which very likely was early, rural, and Galilean, had to say about the teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

And although we’re a little late to the party, we take a moment to discuss the very serious issue of Elevatorgate.