Does the E4F show still exist?

[leighton]I have to ask considering their iTunes account hasn’t been updated since their conversation with us. I’m sure Dr. Mike has distanced himself from the show as best he can, but does it still exist? This is a question which doesn’t really keep me up at night or even cross my mind until I randomly receive an email from Kirk Hastings with his signing the show in his title(Is he to be the new Dr. Mike?).

You all will have to forgive me my absence. My new place doesn’t have Internet yet so coming to the website and answering emails is a bit of a difficulty for me, but when Charley called me this morning about this inanity, I made an effort.

What you will see below is a polite email request to take down my postings……And then a particularly long email exchange wherein Kirk does his best to throw dust in the eyes of his readers by tossing up excuses as to why they lost the debate. You know, the one thing I can’t quite put my finger on is why that email exchange was attached to the request. Did he just accidentally properly format it, type out his request, send it to me, and is going to realize the mistake and send another request about my not ever, ever posting up his “well-laid” list of excuses? There couldn’t possibly be an ulterior motive to his request…he’s a Christian. They don’t hide their lights under a bush.

Well, it’s a good thing he has morality on his side otherwise I might have had to sit him down and explain to him there’s no need to attempt to manipulate my atheistic and Neanderthal brain, all you have to do is ask. Oops, hold on for a second. I have to answer to my basic instincts and scratch my balls.

There’s nothing like a shorn and suntanned scrotum to make a man really feel like a man in those morning breezes. Makes you feel like bursting into song and dance just like in The Sound of Music…

Scrotum, scrotum, you’re just a bag of skin.
Scrotum, scrotum, you keep my testes in.
Wriggly, squiggly, and covered with hair,
What would you do if it wasn’t there?

Second verse, same as the first, sorta.

Scrotum, scrotum, we all love you.
Scrotum, scrotum, you imprison that special goo.
Warm and cuddly and ready in spite,
Of that Christian girl we regretted last night…

Almost forgot I was here to do something. Oh yeah, here’s Kirk at his finest in an email exchange dated at more than a month ago with Kirk complaining about getting swamped with emails from our site…from more than a fucking month ago:

On Tuesday, April 19, 2011, wrote:

Leighton,

I respectfully suggest you take down your comments about our last “debate” from your website, because, frankly, I’m getting tired of answering simple-minded e-mails from your followers like the one below …

(P.S.: Thanks for teaching me how to respond to lunatics like yourself — it’s been a real learning experience for me. I learn quickly!)

Sent: Friday, March 11, 2011 10:41 PM
Subject: A brief note from an Irreligiosophy listener

Just got done reading over the exchange posted over at the Irreligiosophy blog, and I just wanted to say a few things, given with how much interest I listened to the debate posts as they were uploaded to my iPod.

Leighton’s a dick.  I admit that freely.  He’s an acerbic, sarcastic, abusive, vulgar character.  I have no idea if he’s like that in “real life,” but the impression that I get, seeing as I’ve noticed it being switched on and off, is that it’s a character choice.  I listen to Irreligiosophy as an atheist version of the Howard Stern Show.  They’re trying to be funny, shocking, and provide entertainment.

I’m here to tell you, though, that you are wrong about such things driving people further away from atheism.  I would never have deconverted if I hadn’t tuned into these atheist shows like Irreligiosophy, Reasonable Doubts and the Atheist Experience to hear arguments and positions that made infinitely more sense than every religious apologetic I’d ever seen.

Now, for your part, you eventually show your colors in the email exchange when you drop the civil demeanor and reveal the true bigotry that is necessitated by your beliefs: that every atheist must be evil, hate-filled, and dedicating to dragging souls into damnation.  Thank you for finally being honest.

You’re wrong, of course–I’ve never been happier or more at peace since I realized that there is no god worth worrying about in this universe.  Just today, in Japan, we witnessed how we live on an uncaring planet that is emphatically NOT well-designed to sustain life, and that sometimes there is much suffering for no reason. 

And that is a comforting thought, “for no reason.”  There is a favorite quote of mine from a TV show a few years back: “I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be so much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.”  We also must care for one another, because there is no invisible sky-father to bring succor to the dead and the dying, but that is another subject.

As far as the apologetics go, concering Jesus’ conflicting lineage and the nonsensical Easter morning narratives, it’s the same backflips of logic I’ve seen from apologists for years.  One takes it as read that the passages must be true, and one fixes one’s facts around the policy. It fails with me for one simple reason: you are suggesting that the omnipotent, omniscient creator, in order to convey The Most Important Information In The Universe, chose to use copies of copies of translations of copies from anonymous authors’ anecdotal accounts, with no originals, replete with even apparent contradictions?

The fact that there even needs to exist a “discipline” such as apologetics is proof positive to me that the subject matter is at best corrupted and at worst outright fiction. (Guess which is more likely.) The vehicle of revelation from God Almighty ought to carry the same weight and power as standing in front of him, not this pile of contradictions and forgeries.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Sir (name withheld),

You know, I don’t believe we did very well in the debate with Chuck and Leighton either; I personally thought the whole show was a total fiasco, and I agree with Leighton (one of the few times I agree with him!)  that it was a “2 1/2-hour waste of time” in the end. But not because I think Chuck and Leighton have better intellectual arguments, or because our facts can’t stand up to theirs. I don’t know whether Leighton is the same in real life as he is on his podcasts or not, but in the end it really doesn’t matter. They “won” the debate because Leighton in particular specializes in being as nasty as he possibly can, using rotten attitudes, sarcasm, ridicule, put downs, and name-calling against his opponents, and having no respect whatsoever for whomever he is debating with, or what they might believe (or why they believe it). He is not afraid to treat other people like dirt in order to be able to say afterward “See? These people are idiots, and we won the debate!”, when all he really did was vocally “beat us up” in a way that we refused to answer in kind. That’s not winning a debate; that’s bullying people. We had perfectly rational answers for every single question he brought up, but he refused to allow us to calmly present those arguments because he insisted on constantly going off onto one irrelevant tangent after another so that we couldn’t keep up with him, constantly accusing us of things that weren’t true (like that we believe in rape!), and presenting a bunch of ridiculous arguments for trivialities like “there is no evidence whatsoever for the Gospel of Mark being named after him as the writer” (when most serious scholars today, even non-Christian ones, freely accept that as probably being true!). And so what if Mark might be named after the wrong writer? The document itself doesn’t directly tell us who wrote it. And if it is traditionally named after the wrong writer, does that automatically make everything in it of no historical account whatsoever? Why was that “argument” even important to the topic at hand anyway (whether God exists or not)? Or the verse about rape in the Old Testament? Leighton completely overwhelmed us with nastiness and constant put downs so that a calm, rational debate about facts and information was in the end impossible. According to him, everything he says is automatically “right”, and everything we say is automatically “wrong”, no matter what is said. That’s not rational debate; that’s street brawling. And in the end it doesn’t prove anything.

Incidentally, when people like Leighton act like a jackass and treat other people like crap, how come that’s being “reasonable” and “rational”, but when I tell him the truth about his rotten attitude I’m being a bigot? Isn’t that using kind of a double standard? He’s allowed to “defend” himself by any means possible, but I’m not allowed to honestly respond or I’m a “bigot”? That’s very convenient for Leighton (and all other atheists), isn’t it? No matter how we respond, we’re wrong!

And do you really seriously think Leighton gives a hang about you or any of the other people that write into Irreligiosophy? He’s not there to help you live a better life and to “understand truth”, pal. He’s there to make himself feel “superior” by beating other people up and throwing his nasty attitudes around. He’s a psychopath, and he gets his personal jollies by making other people miserable and trying to kid himself in the process that he’s somehow “smarter” and “better” than everyone else. An unfortunate fact of life, but that’s the way some people are. Yet God has promised that He will deal with such people, and in the end they will reap what they sow, and they will get exactly what they deserve. I sincerely believe that.

The information I submitted about Jesus’s lineages in the Gospels is accepted as perfectly reasonable by many Biblical scholars and archaeologists who understand the society that Jesus lived in, a society very different from the United States in the 21st century. You can’t always apply modern literary standards to things that were written 2000 years ago and halfway across the world in a totally different society. (Of course, you can if you’re biased and narrow-minded like Leighton is, and it happens to suit your personal opinion!) You can say it’s all bunk if you want, but that’s just your personal opinion, and it isn’t seen the same way by many historical experts and scholars who know exactly how first century people in the mideast thought and wrote and traced genealogies. The same goes for the New Testament passages about Jesus’s resurrection. You don’t have to accept them if you don’t want to, but most serious historians and scholars (even many non-Christian ones!) will disagree with you. They agree that the Gospel accounts hold up quite well to modern historical scrutiny — including the parts about the resurrection.

The fact that there is a discipline called “Theology” and another called “Apologetics” means there’s something there to argue and talk about. If there wasn’t, neither field would exist, and the thousands of books written about them over the centuries wouldn’t exist either. We specifically need the science of Apologetics to deal with people like you, and Chuck, and Leighton!

And if atheism is true, then why are there so many books nowadays attempting to defend it? And why are there so many books like “Why Evolution Is True” by Jerry Coyne, if evolution is in fact true? According to your logic, we shouldn’t need this kind of stuff either!

There are many reasons why what is happening in Japan is happening right now. The Bible makes it perfectly clear that we are living in a “fallen” world where such things as suffering and pain and natural disasters happen; it does not ignore that fact. In fact, Jesus Himself suffered as much or more than most of the people in Japan are right now! Such events do not “disprove” God. They only prove that life is complicated, that it can be hard, and that God is not a celestial “Santa Claus” that always gives us complete comfort and ease and everything we might selfishly want in life. He is in control; we are not. The Bible makes all those facts perfectly plain; it does not gloss over them like some religions do (that claim that suffering, pain and death are all “illusions” and are not “real”).

I assume you are still relatively young, and in fairly good health. When you get older and are facing disease, disability, and eventual death, I hope you can still be at “perfect peace” with the fact that you are going to deteriorate physically, and then cease to exist and be gone forever. And that nothing you do, say or think in the meantime during your life has any meaning whatsoever!

If you can do that (without constantly being drunk or under the influence of mind-numbing drugs), then you are a lot better than most other people are.

Kirk Hastings
Evidence4Faith