Interfaith Dialogue Revisited - Hamza Tzortzis and the William Lane Craig influence

Back in February I mentioned that an article Hamza Tzortzis wrote seemed to rely heavily on the work of Christian apologist William Lane Craig. It was a reasonably unpopular article until PZ Myers featured it, earning me 1,800 hits in one day. If you're counting that's about 1,750 more than average.

Hamza initially denied that there were similarities between William Lane Craig's work and his own:

But I'm glad to report that within two days of the increased interest Hamza has updated his article, giving proper credit to Christian apologists Paul Copan, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Frank J. Tipler, John D. Barrow, Keith Ward and Roy Abraham Varghese as well as atheist philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong as influencing his thinking on the matter. No Muslim authors were cited, though the Qur'an was quoted in several areas.

International Eucharistic Congress Riots!

The dust is settled, rebuilding efforts have commenced, and Garda horses have entered into a period of counselling and emotional healing. Now, safe behind my barricades, I feel I can tell the full story of the IEC 2012 riots, fleshing out my tweets from yesterday.

7:30pm "Pandemonium here in Drumcondra. Crazed, drunken attendees of #IEC2012 rampaging. Street battles with Gardai. Looting and lewdness abound."

We're used to a little exuberance from attendees of events in Croke Park here in Drumcondra. GAA fans are generally an affable bunch, though few seem able to control their bladders for a full evening and they tend to empty out every ATM in a two mile radius. Concerts can be noisy, and of course there's the compromise rules crowd, who like to make their presence known. Still, nothing prepared us for the rampage that marked the ending ceremonies of the International Eucharistic Congress 2012.

7:53pm "Fuelled by commandeered kegs, the #IEC2012 gang have formed a phalanx and are pressing in to Glasnevin. St Luke's has fallen."

Craig Marsh and the anonymous performance review

I've been contacted by a former worker at one of Craig Marsh's shows. They've wanted to tell their story for some time now but have been concerned about community reprisals. I'll be respecting their request for anonymity, but if you have any questions based on the below please add a comment and I'll e-mail the author for clarification.


The year was, 2006 (I think), the month, March (I think) and Craig Marsh had arrived to conduct a multi-day mission.

I say 'I think' because it could have been the previous October, or both, I didn't keep much of a record about the dates I'm afraid.

Craig Marsh's Response: More Than I Can Stomach

*Edit: I've been asked to state that I do not work for Premier Christian Radio, do not represent their views and am not acting on behalf of their company or agents. I'm happy to do so.*

Back in March I discussed modern-day miracles with Doctor Craig Keener on Premier Christian Radio. He'd written a 1,200 page book on the subject, and while he was a pleasant chap with some good points on Hume I disagreed with his endorsement of riot-inciting Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke and Dawit Molalegn, mega rich megapastor of the FBI miracle church.

In addition the host played two recorded messages and asked for my response. One was from a woman who said her leg felt improved some days after being prayed for. The other was from a Pastor Craig Marsh. His - let's be polite initially - story was that his stomach had been largely amputated for medical reasons, he was terminally ill, and then during a group prayer event his stomach spontaneously regrew, allowing him to both live a normal life and perplex his medical staff.

Lennox, Scherer, and the giant floating forest hypothesis

While first reading "God's Undertaker" I noticed a reference to "Evolution - ein kritisches Lehrbuch" by Professor Siegfried Scherer. I'll admit I didn't pay it much heed at the time - the review was already unwieldy in length, my German was rusty, and tracing down every last error would have been something of a time sink.

But a couple of months later I amused myself with a dictionary and skimmed a few pages of the book Lennox had used to justify the following quote:

"Siegfried Scherer of the Technical University in Munich suggests that living things can be classified in certain basic types – a classification slightly broader than that of species. A ‘basic type’ is defined to be a collection of living things connected either directly or indirectly through hybridization, without regard for whether the hybrids are sterile or not. This definition incorporates both genetic and morphological concepts of species, and, according to Scherer, research so far indicates that ‘in the whole experimentally accessible domain of microevolution (including research in artificial breeding and in species formation), all variations have certainly remained within the confines of basic types’." -God's Undertaker, Page 109

I'd thought that the 'basic type' sounded suspiciously like the Biblical 'kind', used by Creationists to mean something between species and clade, meandering between both possible definitions depending which chapter of Genesis was at stake.

Episode V: The Moonies Strike Back

For strike, read e-mail. At the start of this month I contacted the Moonies to ask a few questions around the logistics of their Messiah's prophecy of a God-mandated purge, ridding the world of homosexuals. I wrote in the style of someone concerned for staffing levels, and wondering if the proposed burnings would affect those in close proximity, or those who had merely experimented. You can read it here.

Their response was underwhelming. Despite their Messiah proclaiming that gays are dung eating dogs Patricia was unable to help me with a proposed tax refund claim for canine employees, or suggest dung recipes.

I'll reproduce it in full:

Circumcision and Yaweh's Changing Morality

Imagine, if you will, that you've created this universe. That you've watched it expand and boil, then cool, collide and mature. That you've seen stars form and grow and die, then cast their contents to the cosmos, scattering the building blocks of molecules required for life. Imagine you look at just one of the hundreds of billions of galaxies that you have made, and from it select one of the hundreds of billions of stars,  and give your focus to one of its planets.

From there, give your attention to first life. Watch it stutter and start, nearly obliterate itself in the oxygen catastrophe, watch it grow larger and expand in variety only to gaze on dispassionately while it is mostly annihilated some sixty five million years ago. Then see how life recovers, and watch how the mammals begin their ascendancy to fill a void left by the death of dinosaurs. Now wait millions of years, until you see the first apes straighten to two legs and stagger blinking into the light, afraid, alone, dying mostly of their teeth or in childbirth.

Watch the rise of the Neanderthals, with their hopes, rituals and protoreligious burials unanswered, then watch as they decline, dwindle and die. We mere mortals know that Homo florensiencsis discovered fire and likely made hunting tools but you will be able to see with clarity how closely these long dead cousins mirrored our intelligence. Enjoy the discoveries, waiting, watching, until some two hundred thousand years ago the first anatomical humans rise to enjoy a life of fear and early death. Wait further still, until some five thousand years ago you decide to reveal yourself to a man called Abram, and reveal to him the concern that has been most keenly pressing for this immense chasm of time: