Mr. [Hershel] Davis, speaking for fanatical Bible-believers, boasts that if TSR (and such) is the best that we skeptics, atheists, etc. can do to shatter their belief in Biblical inerrancy, then we ought to take up another vocation. However, that is not a very fair test. Fanatical believers are disconnected from the reasoning process altogether, and no amount of evidence, piled however high, would be enough to convince them. Consequently, the seasoned skeptic does not expect to shake their faith, be it in an inerrant Koran, an inerrant Bible, flying saucers, or a flat earth. We write for the mind that is still open. Once a mind has snapped shut and rusted solid, the head being buried in concrete as it were, then there is not much point in reasoning with it. The true fanatic (defined as a person with extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal, as in religion, politics, etc.) cannot be reasoned with by definition. No doubt, Mr. Davis will continue reading TSR, and he will go safely to his grave with his beliefs intact. That is his privilege, his rightful prerogative, and his error.
But there is always hope. Many of us skeptics were once in a similar condition.
(Dave Matson, P. O. Box 61274, Pasadena, CA 91116.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Long-term subscribers will recognize Dave Matson as a writer of several articles that TSR has published. As noted in the Autumn issue, he has recently published a 102-page analysis of the "scientific" arguments used by creationist Kent Hovind to prove his young-earth theory. The book is thorough in its examination and refutation of Hovind's arguments. It can be ordered at the above address for $14.50. If creationism is an issue in your local or area school districts, this would be a good reference to have in your personal library.
I really look forward to your Skeptical Review each quarter and am excited to receive all of your past issues on disk. Your work is commendable. After over 50 years of religious entrapment, all it took for me to get shocked off my biblical inerrancy perch was two days into Thomas Paine's Age of Reason four years ago. Since then, I've read all issues of Dennis McKinsey's Biblical Errancy, the past 2 years of your Skeptical Review, Steve Allen's Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality, plus a couple of dozen more books on atheism, deism, agnosticism, etc.
I became involved in Mormonism at age 22 in 1961 and spent 22 years involved as an Elder and finally a High Priest. Then, due to some B.A.C. friends of mine, I "saw the light," left Mormonism, became an active anti-Mormon, B.A.C., and spent the next nine years on a crusade to win Mormons from Mormonism to the real "true faith," i.e., born- again Christianity. What a trip it has been for my family and me! We all together (my wife and I and our nine children) came out of Mormonism in 1982; then in 1991 came out of religious nonsense entirely. I consider myself a free thinker-agnostic, who has finally been completely rid of religion/superstition/ ignorance.
Thanks to you and the others I mentioned, I can really enjoy my newfound freedom. Please let me know if I can be of any service to you in any way.
(Walt Noble, 436 East Tenth Street, Mesa, AZ 85203-4728.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Needless to say, this is the kind of letter we like to receive. It suggests that rationality is gaining a stronger foothold in the land. A paperback edition of Paine's book Age of Reason can be purchased for only $5 from Stephen Van Eck, Route One, Box 62, Rushville, IN 18839-9702. A free sample copy of Biblical Errancy can be obtained by writing to Dennis McKinsey, 3158 Sherwood Park Drive, Springfield, OH 45505 or e-mail klo_mckinsey@k12.mec.ohio
I have just received my second issue of The Skeptical Review. I'm impressed with the fine editing of your publication, the only one I read from cover to cover. The incisive commentaries and intelligent articles are a delight. Keep up the good work.
I've evolved from conservative Catholic to liberal Catholic to agnostic, and it's been an interesting journey. I've recently read The Bible Handbook, published by the American Atheist Press, which places biblical texts side by side so that the contradictions are undeniable to someone with common sense. What an eye opener! The real miracle of Judeo-Christianity is that the bible, with its contradictions and accounts of atrocities attributed to God, gets as much unquestioning respect as it does from some believers.
I would love to share your publication with religious friends and family members, but I don't think they're ready. My experience with Christians tells me that some are so emotionally fragile that for them to question their faith would be to undermine it, to undermine it would be to lose it, and to lose it would be to turn their worlds upside down. Fear of death and damnation aren't the only reasons some close their minds. There are social, economic, and cultural dimensions to religion that would be imperiled if one adopted a skeptical mindset. Facing facts after a lifetime of indoctrination requires integrity and involves the same courage it takes for a child to relinquish a beloved security blanket, but the freedom is worth it. Your publication shows me I'm not alone, and that helps.
I'm enclosing a check to cover the cost of your booklet Prophecies: Imaginary and Unfulfilled, as well as back issues of TSR 1993 and 1994. Thanks for giving me a forum to express my views.
(Irene Jones, 16585 Barryknoll Way, Granger, IN 46530.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: "The freedom is worth it." I know that this is true from my own personal experience of finding the courage to reject religious nonsense and face reality, and I hear the same message over and over from those like Ms. Jones who take the time to write about their journeys from superstition to rationality.
The Bible Handbook can be ordered from H. H. Waldo, Bookseller, P. O. Box 350, Rockton, IL 61072-0350. The telephone number is (800) 669-2536 (66WALDO).
It seems that religionists never tire of showing their ignorance of logic. A few years back you printed my letter in which I pointed out that in his debate with you Buster Dobbs had incorrectly referred to a hypothetical question as a complex question. Since then, in an exchange stemming from your printing my article "Why Did Matthew Need Dead Babies?" Jerry McDonald attempted to deflect my charge that he had committed the fallacy of converse accident by confusing its definition with that of accident. Now in your Summer 1995 issue, I find Marion R. Fox completely missing the mark in his attempt to define begging the question.
In the second column of his article (p. 2), Fox seems to be defining begging the question as failure to adequately support the minor premise in one's syllogism. At first, I thought I might be misreading him, but on the next page he makes it clear when he writes, "In order to prove the conclusion, Farrell must prove his minor premise. Where is his proof? He assumed it without proof! He begged the question."
But that is not at all what the term means. In the words of Copi in his introductory text: "If one assumes as a premise for his argument the very conclusion he intends to prove, the fallacy committed is that of pettitio principi, or begging the question." This has nothing to do with the acceptance or level of development of a premise, only with whether one of the premises assumes the conclusion.
Fox did at least correctly define denying the antecedent. He took some pains to do it, as you've pointed out, with the rather strange sample premise of the Biblical errantist arguing that what the Bible says is true. But there he drops the ball. Although accusing you of committing this fallacy, he in no way ties it in to your argument. This particular fallacy is an invalid syllogistic form. Yet his two reductions to syllogistic form of what he sees as your positions are simple AAA syllogisms, as is his own syllogism. These are valid.
For all his effort in carefully defining this fallacy, he nonetheless demonstrates that he really doesn't understand it after all. What's more, he shows that he cannot distinguish between the validy of an argument (whether it is of a valid form) and its soundness (whether its premises and conclusion are correct). It is unfortunate that, signing his school's name to his article, he could not present us with a bit more in the way of academic excellence.
(Earle C. Beach, P. O. Box 16519, Austin, TX 78761.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Several readers have written or called to comment on various logical problems in Mr. Fox's article. Two other letters on the subject appear below.
Marion Fox erred in his discussion of supposed logical errors by inerrancy skeptics. He claimed that skeptics are guilty of the fallacies of denying the antecedent and begging the question. Actually the logic is as follows: If the Bible is true, then X is true. The logical equivalent of this is its contrapositive: If X is not true, the Bible is not true (if p then q; not q, therefore not p).
This reasoning is how all rational people test ideas against reality and how scientists know when to modify their hypotheses. Fundamentalists never modify their "theory," since they never test it against reality. They in fact beg the question as Mr. Fox accuses skeptics of doing.
We have hundreds of statements in the Bible to choose from, including facts of astronomy, geology, biology, mathematics, logic, ethics, history, anthropology, and other disciplines, in order to test against reality and decide whether the Bible is literally true. The Bible may be a literary genre, or an attempt by a superstitious desert tribe to find meaning in their existence, or any number of things, but the Bible cannot be literally true.
(Ed Unger, 1380 Toonigh Road, Canton, GA 30115.)
Marion R. Fox's "Answers to a Claim of Errancy of the Scriptures" (TSR, Summer 1995) seems to presume that all arguments are deductive arguments. This presumption leads him to press inductive arguments into deductive straw men, then complain that they are invalid. For instance, Fox claims that an argument for the nonexistence of the Hittite nation from the lack of evidence of such a nation is an example of denying the antecedent. It is far more likely that, rather than engaging in the invalid deductive reasoning Fox gives, adherents of this view reasoned as follows:
This is an inductive argument of the form known as "statistical syllogism." It is not deductively valid, but rather is inductively cogent and subject to counterexample as later evidence comes along. The revisability of the conclusions of inductive arguments is why such reasoning is known in the artificial intelligence community as "nonmonotonic reasoning." A knowledge base of information is not always increasing (monotonic), but can contract as conclusions have to be discarded. Rules of reasoning that are nonmonotonic in character more accurately represent human knowledge and reasoning than does the oversimplification of deductive logic.
For more information, I recommend Gilbert Harman's Change in View (1986, MIT Press/Bradford Books), John Pollock's Nomic Probability and the Foundations of Induction (1990, Oxford University Press), and Howard Kahane's Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life(6th edition, 1992, Wadsworth). The Harman and Kahane books require no prerequisite knowledge in logic or philosophy; the Pollock book is fairly technical.
(Jim Lippard, 2020 West Glendale Avenue, Apt. 20, Phoenix, Arizona 85021, e-mail, mailto:lippard@skeptic.com
EDITOR'S NOTE: Jim Lippard is well known in the freethought movement. When he was still a philosophy student at the University of Arizona, we published a letter from him on the subject of Lindell Mitchell's logic (Spring 1994, pp. 13-14). In the 1989-1990 issues of Creation/Evolution, he conducted a written debate with creationist Walter Brown, who was a star spokesman on Sun Pictures' now infamous "documentary" on The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark. Jim is now writing investigative articles for Skeptic magazine. Two that have already been published are "Sun Goes Down in Flames: The Jammal Ark Hoax" (vol. 2, no. 3, 1994) and "Scientology v. the Internet" (vol. 3, no. 3 , 1995, co-authored with Jeff Jacobsen). He also contributed a chapter to Ed Babinski's Leaving the Fold (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995). I have learned to value his opinion.
I am an atheist, and I must admit that Moffitt was better prepared for this debate than you were. Yes, he is wrong, but he is a fast talker. Also, I think Hawking has done some fine work, even if he seems to imply a cause/God. (Greg Lemery, P. O. Box 168, Lebanon, CT 06249-0168.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: I have often said that Jerry Moffitt is the best debating opponent I have faced. He is indeed a fast talker, and so he gets lots of information into the record. Also, he made an honest effort to debate as opposed to Buster Dobbs, who spent much of the time trying to run and hide, and Norman Geisler, who ignored my arguments and read previously prepared speeches.
On the other hand, I think that an objective examination of Moffitt's performance will show that he didn't even try to defend his proposition. The propositions we signed obligated him to prove that Yahweh, the god of the ancient Hebrews, exists, but Moffitt spent most of his time arguing that design in nature proves that a creator exists. The record will show that when I pressed him to show how that this would in any way prove that the creator was Yahweh of the Hebrews, he refused to address the issue beyond making a quick, unsupported assertion that prophecy fulfillment in the Bible proves that the creator was Yahweh. In my opinion, this was a critical failure on his part that makes it very difficult to consider him the "winner" no matter how glib he may be as a public speaker. Much of my mail agrees with me on this point.
At any rate, I appreciate Mr. Lemery's evalutation of the debate. The next letter expresses a different opinion.
I received the Summer issue of TSR this afternoon, and had a lot of fun reading it. I am impressed by your patience in dealing with completely stupid arguments from inerrantists. If only these people would give up either their claim for inerrancy and/or literalism, the debate about the existence of god would become all the more interesting and intellectually rewarding.
I mailed back the Moffitt-Till debate tapes earlier this week, and I have to admit that I had a very hard time sitting through Moffitt's seemingly interminable rants about the "wonderful design of the human body." You may have seen a Woody Allen movie where Woody and his girl-friend are at a theater waiting to buy tickets. A man standing in front of them launches into a rant about the theories of Marshall McLuhan. Woody then stops this guy and tells him that he is wrong, and that he (Woody) can even produce McLuhan to refute the nonsense. And, incredibly enough, McLuhan makes a cameo and totally trashes the wise-guy's misinterpretations. Woody then makes a classic ad-lib towards the screen saying, "Don't you wish real life were like this?" And I felt exactly like that listening to Moffitt quote Hawking and Sagan ---totally misinterpreting their statements and quoting them out of context or quoting them selectively to his advantage. How wonderful it would have been to have Hawking or Sagan come on stage and say "Jerry, stop crapping!" (Pardon my language, but I get very upset thinking about the debate).
I also happened to be reading John Allen Paulos' book on Innumeracy at about the time I was watching the debate tapes and found that Jerry (and his minions, Fox et al) are quite innumerate and lacking in the knowledge of basic physics (and to watch Jerry Moffitt standing there smiling and lustily expounding on one physical theory after another about God and YHWH).
For example, there was this large board with those huge numbers on it. The number of atoms in the universe is 10^100 and the number of electrons in the universe is 10^102 and so on. Now, I don't know if the number of atoms in the universe is 10^100 or not (likewise for the number of electrons), but I certainly know that the two numbers cannot be simultaneously correct. The best astrophysical calculations we have today have determined that the universe is mostly hydrogen (about 75%) and most of the remaining matter is helium (~25%). The heavier atoms we living beings are made of and which compose the planets are so minuscule in number that they just do not figure into the total. Now, hydrogen atoms have 1 electron and helium atoms have 2 electrons. So the total number of electrons per atom in the universe would be 0.75 + 2*0.25, or about 1.25. The figures that Moffitt quoted make this ratio 100:1, which by no stretch of the imagination is close to 1.25. Maybe Moffitt has his own fantastic theory about free protons and free electrons floating around the universe in a place where time flows forwards and backwards.
Which brings me to the next point. Moffitt was saying that God could exist (without any sort of proof or justification, of course) in a dimension where time flows both forwards and backwards and almost immediately was claiming that time and space were created at the Big Bang (and did not exist before) and that it was God that created time. Now, if God created time then he/she obviously could not exist in a dimension where time flows (backwards or forwards or eastwards or up Jerry's you-know-what). [It] seems like such nutcases want their audiences to swallow any nonsense to justify their stupidity.
Another number I found interesting was the "Borel limit" for impossibility. Borel would be turning in his grave (assuming he was buried) if he heard his theory of probability being so badly mutilated at the hands of super-mathematician Jerry Moffitt and his trusty sidekick Marion Fox. Moffitt was making great news of the "fact" that if the chances against an event are greater than 1 in 10^50, even the great Borel had said that this would not happen. Well, if one took a deck of 52 cards, shuffled it (or did not even shuffle it), and one by one opened out the cards, the probability of that exact sequence occurring is 1 in about 10^68---which according to Jerry could not have happened. Since it did happen, maybe we all really exist in a dimension where time flows upwards and downwards, while Elvis and the UFOs move sideways and zig-zag.
Finally, Jerry (supreme Nobel-prize caliber physicist) was also claiming that we live in a dimension where time moves in only one direction---the so-called half-dimension of time. Sadly, most physicists would claim that the notion of a "flow of time" is purely a human fabrication. The laws of physics are completely unbiased as to the direction of the arrow of time. Even the Second Law of Thermodynamics (so often quoted by creationists) is not totally inviolate---mathematical physicists have proved that if one waited sufficiently long (the Poincare cycles) the universe would revisit any arbitrarily chosen state. While it is true that the Poincare cycles are so unimaginably large (much much larger than anything Jerry could ever dream of writing down on a board and showing his audiences), it is also true that the Second Law is only a local, short-term (relatively speaking), statistical rule for a closed system. The past and the future are in no way special. Of course, I would not expect Jerry to understand or accept this, or nontechnical audiences to appreciate the truly amazing theories that physicists have built over centuries of time, through hard work (and not just through contemplation on some divine entity).
What really cracked me up, made me realize the wickedness of my ways, and repent was Jerry's quote from Carl Sagan that chances against the formation of the universe were 1 in 10^(2-billion). This was the single point during the whole debate that I got past my frustrations and had a really good laugh. This number is so large that even Jerry is satisfied using the smaller numbers from such eminent physicists as Hugh Ross or Duane Gish or Henry Morris.
Speaking of Ross, there is another nutcase of his ilk, Frank Tipler who has written in his recent book The Physics of Immortality that general relativity can be used to prove that the Bible is the one true word. I imagine we shall soon begin seeing and hearing the bible-thumpers start to thump Tipler as well in future debates.
When I first started to watch the debate, I had some paper and a pen, ready to take notes. After 10 minutes of Moffitt I simply gave up all hope of hearing one sensible phrase from him. And then we now have Marion Fox's "explanation" of the flaws in the thinking of atheists and agnostics (in TSR). His "explanation" had me doing triple and quadruple takes just deciphering what the hell he was "explaining." I sincerely admire you for even agreeing to debate such people.
(Krishna Kunchithapadam, 1210 West Dayton Street, Madison, WI 53706. E-mail krisna@cs.wisc.edu)
I must admit that after receiving only three issues of TSR, I'm hooked! Anxiously awaiting each issue, I devour it in one evening and ponder the stimulating articles for days. So I would now like to order every back issue from Volume 1, #1, to Volume 5, #4, inclusive. Enclosed is $20 for the materials requested.
I also wanted to mention that the WWW site maintained by Jeff Lowder (http://paul.spu.edu:80/library/modern/jeff_lowder/sr/) has been moved to a site maintained by the Internet Infidels (http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/).
And, by all means, keep up the excellent work. The more people are exposed to it, the more we can shed our supersitions and get on with living.
(Thomas G. Concannon, 1105 Highway 54 Bypass, 8-D Kingswood Apartments, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.)
Thank you so very much for your uplifting magazine. I, as I'm sure many of your readers are, am isolated in a sea of religion. I've been a member of the AHA for a while now but have never been so uplifted as I was after reading your readers' letters. It is true [that] I have been much happier since becoming a skeptic than I was when I was a believer. The problem has been that I have had to go "underground" with my feelings because of friend/family alienation and discrimination. It's nice to find other people whom I can relate to.
I found out about you through the internet, so I guess that lends credence to your belief that computers will mean the destruction of fundamentalism. I agree with you in general. Certainly many people are not skeptical simply because they have never been exposed to the other side of the coin. We accept many things that are never questioned. I remember when I became a skeptic it had never dawned on me to question the existence of god. The question had always been, what was he? It was never, is he?
I am enclosing a check for $25 for the back issues of your magazine: 1990-1994. Thank you so much for the great work that you are doing! I know you could go around deluding yourself and others thumping a bible and making lots of money, Oh, well, the truth may set you free, but it won't make you rich.
(John Sandstrum, 1805 Devine, Jackson, MS 39202.)
Enclosed you will find a money order for $6 for a subscription to The Skeptical Review. Sending me those free sample issues is what convinced me to subscribe to your informative newsletter. I will be looking forward to receiving my first issue from you.
(Roger La Porte, 148 Freund Street, Buffalo, NY.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: We are often asked why we give a free first-year subscription. The answer is that most people who request the free subscription become paid subscribers after they have had the opportunity to read a few issues at no cost to them.
The God concept is a fantasy, pure and simple. Why? There is not a scintilla of evidence to support belief in a deity. How can anyone believe in an entity that no one has seen or heard?
Why believe in an imaginary creature? Who needs a deity? What good is it? What can it do? It is impossible to believe in something that does nothing and hides from everyone. Is this imaginary being ashamed of something? Why doesn't he reveal himself to everyone? Why should some think he did many years ago in a backward country in the Near East?
Jesus Christ has been dead nearly 2,000 years and no one has seen hide nor hair of him. Why? He is a creature of myth and legend. Albert Schweitzer said, "There is nothing more negative than the result of the critical study of the life of Jesus."
Some theologians say the burden of proof for God's nonexistence rests on the atheist. They are in error. Atheists want believers to do what should be, in principle, much easier. If their God exists, bring him up for all to see.
Believers talk about a "creator" or "designer." The cosmos contains only matter and energy that has always existed and always will. There was no first cause. Whatever looks as though it was designed is the result of millions of years of evolution.
A thousand years from now, most people will be atheists. Christianity will principally be remembered for bringing about the Dark Ages.
All the gods are dead. The truth is that they never existed except in the imagination of early man and today in the minds of lunatics.
(Jesse Bailey, 2149-B 16th Avenue South, Birmingham, AL 35205-5020.)
Please renew my subscription. Enclosed is $25 for this year and for the back issues that I have missed.
I wish to let you know how very much I and my associates enjoy your newsletter. It is like a beacon of light in a world full of ignorance and supersition. I look forward to the day when the Bible will be regarded as simply another work of art rather than a guide to morality, and when it will take its rightful place next to the Iliad and Faust as an elaborate work of fiction and nothing more.
Allow me to share a very telling "Christian" memory I have. Last year my brother was brainwashed into becoming a born-again fundamentalist. For the next three months, he became obsessed with his religion, giving all of his money away to the church. Everything became a sin to him, and I, as a hardcore atheist, became the devil incarnate. Despite all attempts to show him the Bible's obvious errors and inconsistencies, he insisted on being faithful. His fanaticism would have undoubtedly lasted longer than three months if he had not been murdered at the Circle-K store where he worked. I had never seen a more fanatically devoted Christian, and the reward for his faith was to be shot down like a dog at 20 years of age.
I suppose all of his fundamentalist friends were really happy for him, getting to meet Jehovah so soon and all, but to those of us who knew the truth, it was a real tragedy. Every Christian who said to me, "He's surely in a better place now," insulted me deeply. As of yet, I have seen no photographs of him partying in heaven, and I don't expect to any time soon. This ridiculous idea of a richer life beyond the grave needs to be blotted out. It simply creates a mindset that discourages people from improving things here and now. Fundamentalists have no idea how much damage they are doing to the human race by their infernal theologies--and what's worse is that most of them don't even seem to care.
Keep up the excellent work.
(Randall Le Jeune, P. O. Box 323, Plaquemine, LA 70765-0323.)
EDITOR'S NOTE: I have sent my sympathy to Mr. Le Jeune in a separate letter in which I asked him for permission to publish his letter. It focuses on a problem that theists have never given a satisfactory response to, i.e., the existence of evil in a world presumably created by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity. The argument is simple but unanswerable, except of course with theistic gibberish. If God is omniscient, then he must know that evil exists in the world he created. If God is omnipotent, he has the power to eliminate the evil that he is aware of. If God is omnibenevolent, then he would have the desire to eliminate the evil that he knows about and has the power to eliminate. Since evil continues to exist in the world, we must conclude that God cannot be simultaneously omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, and any deity who is not simultaneously omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent cannot be the Christian God. Furthermore, if God is omniscient and omnipotent but not omnibenevolent, then he does not deserve our respect.
I'm writing to request the Gleason Archer letter and the entire paper by Dr. Robert Countess that was referred to in the Winter 1992 issue p. 4....
Thank you for TSR. It has helped me to confirm my departure from born- again Bible believer to freethinker. My journey started when I had general questions on the four gospel accounts of the resurrection of the NT Jesus and the so-called "Messianic prophecies" being fulfilled in the NT Jesus. I put off the studies, looked a little here and there, put if off mostly, but the questions kept returning, so I finally decided to really dig in. My former pastor said that when I studied the issues I had questions about, I should go only to the text of the Bible and if I went outside the Bible, I should read only inerrancy defenses. On my first study, I expanded it to the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension accounts of the NT Jesus. I didn't use gospel parallels and other sources that were like them, only the biblical text. I had many more problems after this than before I began. When I read the inerrancy defenses, they really didn't give me solid, intellectually honest answers. I read Josh McDowell on the issue of Jesus's resurrection, defenses by Gleason Archer, Norman Geisler, and others. When I read the other side, it made more sense. (I didn't read a lot on this side.) Then I tackled the "Messianic prophecies." I went to the Jewish scriptures, OT passages that Christians use, and then to the Christian NT passages where they are supposed to be fulfillments. I saw more problems and things that just didn't add up. I went to inerrantist Christian defenses of the position, like Norman Geisler and others, and to those sources on "the other side," many or most being Jewish views of the "Messianic prophecies" and the whole issue of the Messiah doctrine. The Christian side just did not have answers that proved the NT dealt honestly with the passages (rationalizing notwithstanding). My two studies surely didn't show me overwhelming, harmonious, it-could- only-have-been-God evidence for the Bible's supposedly divine origin. There is real evidence against Christian Bible belief that the Christians need to face up to. McDowell, Archer, and the others have not done this. The "verdict," I believe, is that the Bible simply doesn't stand.
This decision hasn't come to me without searching, hoping to find answers, much studying, and crying in church. Thanks for TSR and the debate videos. Keep up the good fight of reason.
(Harry Ricker, Jr., P. O. Box 6269, Haverhill, MA 01830.)
I can't thank you enough for your wonderfully informative and entertaining publication. As a recovering fundamentalist, I think that you are indeed a breath of fresh air! Keep up the good work. Enclosed is a check for my renewal.
(Jamie Smith, 3500 East Park Boulevard, Apt. 104, Plano, TX 75074.)
Your response to my letter (Summer 1995, p. 12) seems to successfully address my objection to (and misunderstanding of) your article [concerning the raising of Jairus's daughter]. You are right to be confused by my distinction between necessary and sufficient. I misread your argument.
Thank you for your commendable publication. Although you may think this letter is superfluous, I do hope you print it. Admitting error is important.
(Richard Trott, 78-A Phelps Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901.)
