May

Jesus and the Ghosts on My Street

Andrew Bernardin on May 17th, 2011

On the one mile stretch of road that connects my house to the center of town (population roughly ten thousand), there are 4 houses said to be inhabited by one or a number of ghosts. But they aren't ordinary ghosts. They are ghosts of the holy kind. Of the 4 "houses," two are Baptist monstrosities, one Episcopal, one Methodist.

As regular readers of this blog are well aware, I focus a substantial amount of my skeptical energies on religion. Is it because I have some personal axe to grind? No. I'm just responding to the what's in my environment, what I come in contact with on a regular basis.

Some skeptics prefer to focus on ghosts of the paranormal sort. My feeling: Yawn . . . Who cares? Relatively speaking. These skeptics may insist that the two classes of ghosts I am here referring to are completely different. They may even chuckle at the poor dolts who believe in ghosts based on nothing more than unusual sensations, un-explained photographic images, anomalous electromagnetic and thermal readings, etc.

But ghosts of the invisible, spiritual sort -- why, belief in these is based upon something called faith. So it is more reasonable. Right? (Insert my laughter here.)

In my opinion, to confine one's skeptical criticism to such minority concerns is to engage in a neglectful cop-out. In the least, skeptics who prefer to bow to tradition rather than to be fully consistent and potentially make waves . . . well, the least they could do is honestly admit that their mind has been hobbled by custom and/or personal preference.

Recently I finished reading a book by Chris Hallquist: UFOs, Ghosts, and a Rising God: Debunking the Resurrection of Jesus. As you can imagine, with a title like that, how could I not be pleased? And the book did not disappoint.

Hallquist does exactly what I would hope more skeptics would do: He refuses to play favorites, venturing where others neglect to tread. While people hobbled by custom may think, "My gosh, he's thrown Jesus into the same lot as UFOs and ghosts -- that's not right!," I say, "You go guy!"

Where does Rising God go? As the title spells out, it evaluates and criticizes claims of a resurrected god (Jesus) by applying the same skepticism one applies to claims about ghosts and UFOs. Hallquist particularly addresses arguments made by contemporary Christian apologists.

My verdict: Thumbs up to Chris and UFOs, Ghosts, and a Rising God. It's a good read, a book believers and skeptics alike can learn something from.

freethought, skepticism 3 Comments, read on »

Mar

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Andrew Bernardin on March 16th, 2011

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Andrew Bernardin on March 13th, 2011

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Andrew Bernardin on February 9th, 2011

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Andrew Bernardin on February 6th, 2011

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*A libertarian publication I once subscribed to. While my current beliefs about personal rights (not corporate!) could be described as near libertarian, my beliefs about social responsibilities couldn't be. Not close.