Here is more evidence why no one who uses critical thinking skills should believe in the Resurrection of Jesus: There is overwhelming evidence that the Exodus from Egypt is fiction. It is a folktale. A legend. And this is a big problem for Christians because according to the New Testament, Jesus believed that Moses and the Exodus were historical! That means that Jesus was mistaken, which means that he was not the omniscient Creator God Christians claim him to be, which means that in all likelihood…Jesus is still dead!
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End of post.
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 
The Exodus Never Happened. So Why Did Jesus Think It Did?
When I read the title, the first thing a popped into my mind was that song from Fiddler on The Roof: “Tradition”
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Hey, Gary, as promised, here’s my in-depth piece on ethical malfeasance and legal woes the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod faces in connection with the closure of one of its universities a year ago. https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2021/08/lcms-university-concordia-portland.html
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The LCMS is a corrupt cult.
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Years ago my mother got hosed by some Lutheran investors group, Lutheran Life I believe it was called. She thought she didn’t need to keep an eye on them because hey, they’re Christians. Didn’t work out well.
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Hello, Gary and epicurus. I wanted to share something right quick re. our favorite Xian apologist, Randal Rauser. I realize this is not a political thread, but I wanted to illustrate something that I have long observed about him.
Randal is Canadian. On August 9, Canada officially re-opened its border to fully vaccinated Americans and permanent residents to travel into Canada for legitimate reasons (i.e. tourism). Randal promptly bemoaned the decision. Again, the decision is to allow fully vaccinated Americans and permanent residents to cross the border for legitimate purposes.
Thirty minutes later on the same day, Randal responded to a tweet by Tomi Lahren. Tomi is a conservative commentator. I do not follow Tomi, but she is entitled to an opinion as Randal is. She expressed concern about large numbers of undocumented immigrants crossing the southern border into the U.S. while infected with Covid-19. I’ve lived in Texas for ~30 years. This matter is undisputed. Undocumented migrants have come across the southern border in record numbers, and many thousands of them are reportedly infected. Tomi’s concern is reasonable, and it is shared by many. Randal glibly dismissed her concern as… wait for it… wait for it… Xenophobia.
Okay. I don’t care what side of the political aisle anyone is on. This is a grotesque display of hypocrisy on Randal’s part. In fact, it is common for him on social media re. American politics.
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To make my previous comment on Randal’s tweet a bit more concise, I think his response to Lahren is based on her reputation, rather than the content of her tweet. I think he is wrong to do that.
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Thanks for the reply. We disagree about this. And, what Lahren said is demonstrably true. It is readily confirmable from official data that is publicly available.
Perhaps you don’t follow Randal closely on Twitter. I have read many hundreds of comments by him. Randal claims to be even-handed and without affiliation re. one side or the other, and then he (predictably) takes a Leftist position again, and again, and again, and again. He repeatedly attacks conservative politicians and/or conservative pundits and/or conservative reporters and/or conservative evangelicals etc. He has attacked conservatives since before Trump was even elected to office (and he dismissed Trump’s chances of winning an election back then, so all this caterwauling by Randal is about more than Trump). He recently said American Republican politics “truly is a cesspool”. He recently called Franklin Graham “an incomparable sleaze” and beseeched people to stop donating to Samaritan’s Purse (a charity with a demonstrably good record for transparency and actually giving proceeds to the needy). I can scarcely recall (if at all) from hundreds and hundreds of posts where Randal ever publicly berated the Democratic Party or political Progressivism itself. That’s fine if he wants to own up to being an unapologetic Leftist activist and shill, but he doesn’t. In fact, I recall that Randal posted a comment on Twitter where he alleged that the greatest threat to U.S. democracy was the existence of right-wing media outlets. I didn’t screenshot the tweet, so I can’t post it here, but I read it on his site. Just think about that for a moment. The existence of a free press that gives an unobstructed voice to people of different political persuasions is ESSENTIAL to a functioning democracy, yet Randal opines that conservative media outlets are a threat to U.S. democracy. Oh, that’s brilliant. /s
Randal is determined to infuse Christian theology with Leftist (call it Progressive if you like) viewpoints (imo). He demonstrates a fanatical reliance upon his moral intuitions (imo). He is a Leftist social and political activist (imo). Frankly, I am surprised that he is still gainfully employed at an evangelical theological seminary.
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1st paragraph correction: I meant to type “We agree about this”.
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Thanks, I don’t follow Randal (or anyone) on Twitter, as I find the format annoying – To many short, easily misinterpreted, poorly thought out comments (on all sides).
I of course, don’t have the answer for the US Mexico border problems, I doubt Randal does either, and he and I live in a country that doesn’t have those issues. If we did, I think the world would see a far less tolerant and less “nice” Canada. We often get to make grand pronouncements because we know or at least believe we will never be put to the test.
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I’m an actual Leftist, at least for America. I doubt Rauser is. Graham IS a sleaze, but given Falwell Jr.’s recent antics, Graham is NOT an “incomparable” sleaze.
Oh, issues at the border are the making of both duopoly parties for decades.
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Thanks for the reply, SocraticGadfly.
I noted to epicurus and Gary on another thread that the thrust of my comments re. Rauser were not a critique of his political views per se. Randal is entitled to his views, and his views don’t shape my own. I was highlighting examples of what I believe to be duplicity on Rauser’s behalf.
Since you opined on Rauser’s views, I have followed his comments via his blog and/or twitter for about 7 or so years. Rauser is decidedly “Progessive” on issue after issue. I had an exchange with John Loftus on his blog about 7 or so years ago re. Rauser (when I first started following Rauser), and Loftus himself characterized Rauser as “Progressive” (theologically and sociopolitically). That is saying something coming from John, and Rauser certainly hasn’t become conservative since then. Rauser is decidedly Left-of-center on scores of sociopolitical issues.
I am not here to defend Graham or Falwell Jr. I pointed out Rauser’s comments as examples. However, I will defend the right for Samaritan’s Purse and Liberty University to exist irrespective of Graham’s or Falwell Jr.’s character issues. Samaritan’s Purse has been independently reviewed and given high ratings re. transparency and its giving percentage of its income. The charity clothes the needy and feeds the hungry. Needy and hungry people don’t care much who Graham voted for in a POTUS election. Calling for people to boycott the charity is asinine. As far as Liberty University goes, the entire faculty, staff and administration do not all need to lose their jobs because Falwell Jr. is a cretin. The entire student body and the list of prospective students do not need to be redirected elsewhere for the same reason. That is asinine.
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Given the largely uncontrolled spread of COVID in the US, and that Republicans don’t seem to care one whit about it anyways, I tend to agree with Randal that this isn’t so much about COVID and more about keeping brown people out. Even if they are suddenly worried about spread of the virus (oh, so now they care about stopping the spread?!? Give me a break) given how quickly the virus spreads and that there are no significant restrictions on travel or social gatherings anyways, infected migrants aren’t the problem that needs to be dealt with. COVID is simply a distraction so that conservatives can try to “own the libs.”
I don’t agree with Randal about keeping the border shut to those who are fully vaccinated, especially to permanent residents, but the two issues that are being discussed are only tangentially related.
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Thanks for your response, Herald. As I noted to SocraticGadfly above, I did not cite Randal’s views for the purpose of critiquing them per se. He is entitled to his views. I agree with some of them. However, he has been duplicitous re. how he characterizes himself relative to the views he consistently expresses. Plenty of people (other than me) have commented on this over the years on twitter and/or YouTube and/or on various blogs. It’s obvious (imo).
Randal doesn’t know jack about the issue of illegal immigration and why so many Americans (especially in border states like mine) strongly oppose it. He is parroting Democrat talking points. I have lived in Texas for ~30 years, and I wholly reject the claim that protecting the border is primarily about “keeping brown people out”. I live in a major metropolitan area, and I don’t know one person who has intimated to me that keeping “brown people” out is a primary reason for wanting border security. For that matter, Herald, you might be surprised to learn that many Hispanics in Texas and the U.S. strongly oppose illegal immigration. That is particularly true along border counties in Texas. Many stated that issue as a primary reason why scores of them voted Republican for POTUS in 2020. They want border security because they fear a rise in crime, they fear a flood of immigrants may compete with them for jobs, they are concerned about overcrowding in schools, and they resent the fact that many of them have pursued citizenship legally whilst many new immigrants come illegally and demand amnesty. Their objection to illegal immigration has nothing to do with migrants being brown. Please stop propagating that claim. And, I don’t care if a blowhard like Tucker Carlson ever spewed such a notion. He doesn’t speak for us.
“…the two issues that are being discussed are only tangentially related.” – Herald
We disagree. For that matter, Randal has expressed on twitter his disdain for the existence of a physical border (i.e. constructing a wall) along the southern border of the U.S. How very “Randal” of him considering that mass migration into Texas (and New Mexico and Arizona and California) doesn’t directly impact him in his cloistered environment up north.
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We’ve long known that people on border states, particularly conservatives, are worried about illegal immigration. That’s not what’s at issue here.
My issue with Tomi Lahren (and a whole bunch of other Republicans) is that she’s suddenly decided that COVID is something to be concerned about now that it’s potentially coming over the border with illegal immigrants, but like every other hyper-conservative in the US, she has never given a shit about COVID otherwise. They don’t care if they get COVID, or how many people become infected. They don’t seem to want to do much of anything to help prevent the spread of this virus. The only time they give a shit about COVID is when it’s related to something they know that they can whip their base into a frenzy about.
The whole tweet was nothing more than a political dog whistle, and I agree with Randall about that.
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Herald, opposition to illegal immigration is hardly limited to conservatives in border states. I cited the example of Texas, as I live here, and Texas has a large population of Hispanics. The objection to illegal immigration here and in many other states is not primarily because new immigrants are “brown people”. I noted the strong opposition to illegal immigration by many Hispanics to illustrate the absurdity of the claim. And, considering the immediate impact that mass migration has to Americans (Hispanic or otherwise) in border states, they are far better informed of its impacts than bloviators like Randal who feel effectively ZERO impact because of it.
I do not personally care about Tomi Lahren’s personal convictions one way or another. She lived in Texas for some time, and perhaps her views re. illegal immigration were shaped by it. As far as the merits of Tomi’s tweet, what she said is correct. You are free to speculate why she tweeted what she did, but what she said is correct (which was my point that Randal did not address the content of what she said and glibly dismissed it as something else). I’ve been to the southern border of Texas. Scores of Border Patrol Agents have been infected. Scores of illegal immigrants (perhaps hundreds of thousands) have evaded Border Patrol Agents and headed to destinations unknown this year.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Report-Just-68-Illegal-Border-Crossers-Get-Caught
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/18-percent-migrant-families-leaving-border-patrol-custody-tested-positive-n1276244
“More than 18 percent of migrant families and 20 percent of unaccompanied minors who recently crossed the U.S. border tested positive for Covid on leaving Border Patrol custody over the past two to three weeks, according to a document prepared this week for a Thursday briefing with President Joe Biden.”
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“As far as the merits of Tomi’s tweet, what she said is correct”
Technically, yes, it is probably correct. Some degree of COVID is likely coming in with illegal immigration. The problem is that it’s statistically negligible when the compared to the effects of geometric growth that is being allowed to perpetuated by ineffective, and I might add outright dangerous, policies being instituted by Republican governors and states which their Republican electorate want. Bitching about COVID all while Republicans don’t care about it only serves to demonstrate that this is really about attempting to make political gains, rather than actually being concerned about a real problem. The fact is that uncontrolled geometric growth will always outstrip whatever problem is coming in from the southern border.
But who knows. Maybe you actually do care about COVID, but the reality is that the majority of conservatives simply don’t. They the ones who generally aren’t getting vaccinated, they don’t wear masks, and their politicians institute policies that are encouraging the spread of this virus. They are pointing out the leaky faucet the river takes their house away.
Frankly, when Republicans can start to show that they are willing to get their own house in order regarding preventing the spread of COVID then we can start having a conversation about the smaller problem of immigrant related COVID coming in from the southern border. Until then, I’m not interested in their two faced whinging.
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Thanks for the reply and for the dialogue.
This issue re. Covid and how it is spreading as a result of policies in Republican-run states vs. Democrat-run states is well beyond the scope of my point re. Randal’s tweets. He trivialized Tomi’s tweet without addressing the actual content of her tweet. That was the purpose of my referencing Rauser’s tweets in the first place. That’s why I brought this up. And, if you believe the spread of Covid in the U.S. via illegal immigration from the southern border is not statistically significant, how statistically significant could allowing only vaccinated Americans and permanent residents into Canada for legitimate commerce possibly be? There’s no realistic comparison between those two situations. Infected migrants who escape contact with law enforcement are pouring across the U.S. southern border by (estimated) hundreds of thousands. Many of them head to destinations unknown.
As an FYI, I am not a Republican or a Democrat. I didn’t vote in 2016 or 2020, because I have disdain for both parties and the two-party system we have. That being said, there is plenty of gaslighting and mud-slinging from BOTH sides of the political aisle. As absurd as it is for Republicans to broadly characterize Democrats as “commies” and “un-Patriotic”, it is absurd for Democrats to broadly characterize Republicans as “racists” and “insurrectionists”. It also benefits nobody to be so divisive. It needs to end before the fractures are irreparable. I think Gary’s idea of establishing a new (Centrist) party is a good idea. There are plenty of members of Congress from both parties that I would like to see voted out of office.
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I think Gary’s idea of establishing a new (Centrist) party is a good idea.
I assume by centrist that you actually mean the real center, which would be to the left of the Democrats, and some party between the Democrats and Republicans?
As it stands, virtually all of American politics takes place in the authoritarian right quadrant of the political landscape, and there is only a very narrow set of differences that the two parties actually have significant disagreement on. For the most part they agree with each other quite a bit. They’ve managed to turn a few issues into wedge issues in order to try and differentiate themselves.
I, for one, would love to see an actual centrist party (meaning something to the left of the Democrat party) in the US that represents the real center of the political landscape. They’d be much closer to my own personal political preferences. Some group that actually wants to bring something new to the table, rather than the stale corporatism and power for the rich that we’ve had for decades. Meanwhile the rich get filthy rich while the rest of us barely keep up.
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Herald, thank you for the reply and for providing the link to that interesting video.
I recall that Gary described himself as a moderate Democrat. I understood his suggestion for a new (Centrist) political party to be something that could draw moderate Democrats (and perhaps moderate Republicans).
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I remember reading this story earlier in the year, and I thought to myself: “You people already have a perfectly viable center-right party in the United States. They’re called The Democrats.” I don’t understand why people think Americans need even more politics on the center-right.
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As with “conservative” and “liberal” the definition of “centrist” is subjective. My definition of “centrist” is very different from yours, Herald.
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I had to look up both Sturgis and Lahren. She appears to an anti masker nut case, and may well be xenophobic, but in this particular tweet, assuming she is right about thousands of illegal border crossers with covid, there is some merit to her statement I suppose. Randal lives in a country that doesn’t generally have to worry about large numbers of Illegals coming across the border. A couple years ago, a few hundred tried (Haitians from the US afraid of being deported by Trump) and we quickly backtracked on our proclamation that all are welcome.
In that sense, Randal has created a strawman – something he hates when it he feels it is done to Christianity.
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Thanks for the reply, epicurus.
I do not particularly care about Lahren’s political preference. I am only considering the merits of her comment. What she said is demonstrably true. The data is publicly available.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/18-percent-migrant-families-leaving-border-patrol-custody-tested-positive-n1276244
excerpt:
“More than 18 percent of migrant families and 20 percent of unaccompanied minors who recently crossed the U.S. border tested positive for Covid on leaving Border Patrol custody over the past two to three weeks, according to a document prepared this week for a Thursday briefing with President Joe Biden.”
Okay. The U.S. Border Patrol reported approximately 200,000 encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border just in the month of July. That is reportedly the highest single-month total in more than 20 years. This issue is not debatable. Migrants are being processed and transported all over the country. What Lahren said is absolutely correct, and Randal is a hypocrite to glibly dismiss her concern as “Xenophobia”.
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I agree with you, Randal should have definitely addressed the merits of her comment. As you know, he would not tolerate a comment on his blog that attacked him that way without addressing the substance of whatever he happened to have written in a blog post or comment.
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Thanks for the reply. Yes, we agree on that.
As a side note, I enjoy reading yours and Gary’s and Nan’s etc. comments here. I am glad I discovered this site. I appreciate Gary letting me post here (even if I strayed from the topic of the thread).
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Thank you for the compliment.
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You are welcome.
As an FYI, here is more wit and wisdom from Randal today. He equates crass behavior by Marjorie Taylor Greene (a fringe politician if there ever was one) with the entire Republican Party today. How do you suppose Randal would react if a skeptic claimed Jerry Falwell Jr. represented all of Christianity? Think he’d accept that? Neither do I.
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Yes, a constant irritation to Randal over the years has been any critical attitude toward Christianity that he perceives as not giving proper consideration to all the differences in belief amongst Christians ( a seemingly impossible task given the large number of diverse groups calling themselves Christians). As one commenter asked years ago, is it really strawmanning if there are several groups of Christians who do hold a position (such as inerrancy) even if they are not the majority. If I recall correctly, there was no reply.
While my admittedly limited reading about the Republican suggests it has been hijacked by tea party/hard right wingers who have driven out many more moderate Reps., and the party is in turmoil and under Trump’s thumb, there are still some in the party who are not in that camp. So given what I said in the previous paragraph, Randal should be acknowledging that when he makes these attacks.
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Thanks for the reply. That certainly is a reasoned response.
I almost forgot this tweet by Randal. He did, in fact, characterize the Republican Party as a “diverse” group via an image he posted. As best I can decipher, the image includes: a Nazi, a Ku Klux Klan member, a tinfoil hat-wearing whacko seated next to Bigfoot and an alien, a bible-thumping televangelist, a country bumpkin holding a rifle, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a lunatic wearing a Viking helmet who breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, and Mike Lindell (i.e. the My Pillow guy). Yes, Randal, I’m sure that is a charitable characterization of the 75 or so million people who voted Republican in 2020.
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I’d be willing bet pretty much everyone in that meme/cartoon would say they believe in Jesus and are Christian (Ok, maybe not the alien). So a counter to Randal’s assertion could be the big Christian tent with the same people in it. All under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. You know he wouldn’t like that.
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You make a good point. Yes, I imagine most of the people in that image would profess to be a Christian.
As far as Randal goes, my view of him changed quite a bit when I started following what he posted on social media (not including his blog). He posts a lot of inflammatory content, and it is overwhelmingly one-sided with respect to sociopolitical matters. He posts some comments that are unfounded. Again, I did not vote in 2016 or 2020, but I find this is absurd. Randal literally claimed that Trump wishes he could murder his political opposition. As an FYI, it was recently widely reported that the FBI found “scant” evidence that there was any central planning and organization re. the January 6 riot, and Randal’s claiming that Trump dispatched folks at his January 6 rally to kill political opponents is wholly irresponsible. I think Randal discredits himself this way.
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Interesting that there is such a different in tone in his tweets vs his blog. I’ve long thought he has a lot of inner anger that he represses on his blog (usually). Maybe twitter is his outlet for the inner rage he doesn’t want to show on his blog, as the blog tries to put forward an image of the philosopher and seminary prof. Just a hunch.
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WHERE is Gary???
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Perhaps enjoying a bit of an exodus of his own?
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Perhaps. I just hope all is well. One can’t help but wonder considering what’s going on in the COVID world.
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As a person that is Jewish from birth, the fact that the Exodus never happened is a big problem for Judaism too.
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Yes, it is.
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Not only is the Exodus folklore, but the Israelites never conquered Canaan either. They migrated there uneventfully from the Southern Levant. I write about it, along with the true historicity of the Israelites. It’s not a popular path to defy the founding myths, but the true history of my religion and culture is my passion.
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