Robert M. Price is professor of theology and scriptural studies at Coleman Theological Seminary and professor of Biblical Criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute. He was also featured in THE GOD WHO WASN’T THERE. DJ Grothe had Robert on the Point of Inquiry podcast last week and he totally demolishes the historical argument for the Jesus hypothesis. You have to listen to this interview. It’s terrific. I wish I’d heard this before I had John Dickson on the show. Price is incredibly articulate on the subject. I’d love to have him on my show but there is no way I could do a better job than DJ did with this. I’d love to see how Christians respond to these arguments. Perhaps I should try to get Dickson and Price on the show together for a discussion?
By the way, DJ and his producer Thomas Donnelly are coming on G’DAY WORLD this week for a chat. I’m looking forward to that.
Hi, I’m a regular listener to the POI podcasts and agree that the Price interview was very good.
DJ does a great job of playing devils advocate when interviewing these people.
Even better IMO was the previous interview with Victor Stenger, especially the last 1/2 of the interview.
If you can get your head around what he is saying then you may have no need to even bother trying to deny the jesus myth (note no capital J).
I don’t ever discuss such things with committed christians because it only seems the harden their resolve. Reason cannot dispel what reason didn’t put there in the first place.
hey brett – yeah I enjoyed the Stenger interview as well. I disagree with your premise that reason cannot deconvert christians. There are plenty of stories of people who were once christians of the most fundamental kind who have since seen the light. Price was one of those, i believe. Read Dawkins’ site or Rational Responders for more examples. There are plenty of people out there who are christians because they have accepted what they have been told by figures they trust. Someone has to help them understand that they have been mislead. If not you – then who?
Cameron,
As much as I respect Richard Dawkins and co and agree with most of their ideas, as a free thinker I cannot help but be struck by the irony of having on one side, those with a “mission from god” and on the other, those with a “mission from science”.
I guess that’s the sort of dichotomy you inevitably end up with when dealing with such blinkered societies like you find in many parts of the US.
My view is that whether we believe in the primacy of science, god, aliens or pixies at the bottom of the garden, it is the arrogant belief in our beliefs that causes the problems.
So I have no wish to convert christians to my brand of nihilistic atheism. I just want them to take a leaf out of many of the non Abrahamic religions by learning how to coexist with the rest of humanity.
Brett, you got it all wrong mate. As I’ve said here a bunch of times recently – science isn’t about “belief”. It’s about the search for truth. Urging others to search for truth, evidenced based, isn’t about nihilistic atheism (although that may be one of the personal outcomes). We can still co-exist happily with the rest of humanity. I’m not suggesting (neither is Dawkins as far as I can tell) that we (rational human beings) have no wish to exterminate christians or force them at gun point to stop believing in mystery gods. We are, however, trying to convince them through logic and reason to accept that their belief system is built on a house of cards and is bad for society and for the future of the human race.