Flawed Theology

Does the following sentence sound familiar? "I can't understand how we could have possibly evolved from single-celled organisms.  It can't be true." Or even: "I can't believe in a God that would condemn good people to hell." These are logical fallacies called  Argument from Personal Incredulity.   It asserts that a proposition must be false because it is difficult to imagine, is not easily understood, or contradicts one's personal expectations.   It can go the other way too: believing in something because it appeals to one's credulity.  For example: "I like the idea of cosmic justice, where bad people get punished.  So there must be a God." It's important to note that the person MAY reach the correct conclusion using the logical fallacy; but if the pathway to that conclusion is faulty, then it is still fallacious!   A very common path for a theist Why is this fallacious? Obviously, to declare something false because it is difficult ...

Guest post by Don Alabaster Let’s talk about God’s name and how it gives us clues about the origins of the Abrahamic faiths. Or maybe we should say his lack of a name.    “God” isn’t a name, it's a job title. You don’t go to work and refer to your boss as “Boss” or “Team Leader”.  Your Mom probably isn’t actually named “Mom”, either. But God does have an actual name! The Hebrew God of the Old Testament is named “Yahweh”, but even then it's not so simple.  Yahweh has many names sprinkled throughout the Hebrew Bible: YHWH (Yahweh), Adonai, Ehyeh, El, Elohim, El Shaddai, and Tzevaot, among others.  Rabbinic Judaism says that many of these names of God are so holy that they should never be erased.  I feel like I would have a lot of questions for this guy at happy hour Why did the Israelites end up with all of these names in their holy book? Because the Israelites were Canaanites before they were Israelites. The ancient Canaanite religion had an entire pantheon ...