[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]Over at the Church of Awesome I guest on a podcast about fad diets, why they don’t work, and how to actually go about losing weight in a sustainable fashion. They had me on to be the “expert,” but take my dietary and nutritional advice with a huge grain of salt because it is outside my area of expertise — docs don’t get a whole lot of nutrition training, our education is mostly filled with physiology of disease, evidence-based treatments, histology, microbiology, pharmacology, etc etc. Not much room left over in the curriculum for carbs, proteins, and lipids. I feel much more at ease reducing dislocated shoulders, treating high blood pressure, and telling patients why they don’t need antibiotics.

So let me know how many mistakes I made. Re-listening to it yesterday, I think it was more than a few. Maybe I should have communed with the spirits of energy drinks like last time instead of tap water?

[chuck]So I get frequent emails about when Unapologetics is going to make an appearance, questions about why it’s taking so long, and general exasperation over the wait. I take it as a sort of back-handed compliment — hey the good news is that there’s an eager, vocal listening base built-in — but I did want to update you on where things stood and why it has taken this long so far.

Research for the first episode (on the empty tomb) is complete, all I need to do is nail down some format issues and record the thing. Research on the second episode (the art of argumentation) is just about done, most of it done by a listener who did all the groundwork and found some great examples of fallacies for me. I’d like to have 4 or 5 episodes in the can before I begin, but for once the research time isn’t the issue.

[chuck]I was invited to appear on the Sci-fi Review podcast to discuss my favorite movie of all time, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. We discuss the amazing overacting abilities of the Shatner and Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island, the needs of the many vs the needs of the few (or the one), my questionable ability to recall particular scenes of this classic movie line by line, the usefulness of girdles and toupees, and why Citizen Kane pales in comparison. Surprisingly, religion (almost) never comes up.

Check it out here, if you’re nerd enough.

[chuck]Back for what is becoming a monthly trip over to Church of Awesome, we discuss the Mountain Meadows Massacre, a dark time in LDS history where a faithful and obedient band of Mormons slaughtered a group of 120 men, women, and children who were traveling through their territory in 1857. Against the backdrop of previous Mormon persecutions, the martyrdom of their prophet, the “Utah War,” and the recent murder of Apostle Parley P. Pratt, tensions were extremely high in the Territory of Deseret. Find out how this tragedy happened and what role the leaders of the church played in it.

If I always sound sick in these Church of Awesome podcasts, I blame it on overwork and pretty much constant stress. The good news is, both these problems should improve significantly in the near future, and these podcasts provide a nice outlet. So hopefully I’ll be able to do more soon.

[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]While we’re waiting for what may well be an eternity on Unapologetics, the gang over at Church of Awesome had me on for another episode.

This time we discuss various types of secular ethics, how they relate to religious ethics, and their major problems. It’s a brief but hopefully informative overview to the ethical systems that act as alternatives to authoritarian religious dogma, starting in ancient Athens and ending up in 18th century Germany and 19th century England. I love this topic, so it is possible that I talked my cohosts into a stupor. Be forewarned.

Check it out right here.