So long, and thanks for all the fish...

I regret to inform long term readers that this blog will be retired as of today. I will not be contributing any new content to this site, although I will preserve the domain and content. But why, one may ask, am I doing this?

Well... when I started this blog I was still a naïve teenager. I've refined many of my views as the years passed, reading more material and dialoguing with more people. Hell, if you followed me for long enough you probably noticed the differing quality between my earlier and later posts. So, after much reflection, I came to the conclusion that this blog could no longer accurately represent me.

Before you start speculating, I should clarify that I am still an atheist and skeptic just like before. I didn't start believing in Christianity, or magical psychic powers, or truther conspiracy theories, or Pleiadian water alien things. To put it succinctly... it's not that the content of my views have changed, but rather that my reasoning has. For instance, my earlier posts included vague concepts like "group hallucinations", which look kinda amateurish to me now a days. Without further elaboration, I'll just point out that most teenagers aren't quite as smart as adults.

On the up side, none of this removes the possibility of me blogging in the future with a new blog. In fact, much to your (possible) delight, that is exactly what I've done! I've created a new blog, tentatively titled "Andyman409's blog" where I will continue to blog about things that interest me. I hope to see you all there!

Jesus loves you but...

I made this by the way...

Who the bleep does she think she is?

This is JZ Knight. If you watched "What the bleep do we know" like I did, you'll recognize her as "Ramtha".

Happy Valentines day, bloggosphere!

Personally, I hate this stupid holiday. Than again, I am single.

Pat Robertson says that Twilight is demonic

I know Twilight sucked, but that doesn't mean it's evil.

Harold Camping VS. Jesus Christ

This is quite possibly the funniest thing I've read all day.

Gone fishing

This is just a brief announcement that for the next few days I'll be very busy- so dont expect any substantive posts. I won't give away any of the details of my plans (as they are somewhat personal), but they involve applying to a "continuing education" program, editing a short film, fixing my sleeping schedule and reuniting with some old college buddies. Anyways, I'll try to keep the posts interesting, so don't miss out on them. Upcoming posts include a review of E.O. Wilson's "Sociobiology", an analysis of Philip Weibe's critiques of Altered states of Consciousness, and finally a response to a paranormal claim from none other than Mike Licona himself.

Oh, and I'd like to apologise in advance to Chris Halliquist for not making that banner. Sorry, but I didn't think I'd be so busy.

Greetings new viewers.

I recently received an email stating that I am now a part of the Atheist blogroll! Now, not only can I put the little red "A" on the side of my blog- I also get free advertising; and advertising means new readers. So, to all of you new readers out there: hello. My name is Andrew Scicluna, although my alias is Andyman409. I tend to blog about the paranormal, the Resurrection of Jesus, and other empirically verifiable phenomena that would count as evidence for the supernatural. I rarely speak about Philosophy or Intelligent Design- although my brother, currently studying Neurobiology at UofT, may occasionally post on it. If you would prefer that I post about something else, vote for it on the table, and I will try to get around to posting on it.

Also, here  is a link to my "Resurrection Sundays" series. I am also working on another, less frequent series devoted to debunking individual miracle claims called "Andyman409-miracle detective". I plan to post about the divinity of Jesus and OT history at a later date, but for now, I have been focusing on Parapsychology and the Paranormal. Once again, if you'd prefer I do something different, don't be afraid to ask.

Happy new years

Just a quick, belated happy new years to my readers. I'll have to start regularly posting soon, won't I?

Christopher Hitchens- an Obituary

Yes, I know- pretty much every atheist blogger has done a post on the death of Christopher Hitchens. I've been resisting the urges to write a post about it- but I cant help but share a few thoughts. I have to admit, I've seen very little of Hitches work. As many of my readers will know, I have never been a big fan of the new atheists or the new atheism movement. They are frequently criticised for not fully understanding the doctrines they criticise, for their rudeness, etc. And I agree with some of the criticism aimed at the new atheist movement. For instance, I really wish they'd stop supporting Jesus mythicism as a position on the Historical Jesus. I also wish that they'd be more specific when they accuse believers of having blind faith. While the majority of pew dwellers are guilty of the charge, it doesn't apply to the believers who think arguments for Theism work.

So as one can imagine, when I heard of Hitches death, I felt very strange. Here is a man who I hardly even knew, but meant so much to so many atheists. I enjoyed his book on Mother Teresa and his heat filled debates on such political issues as the separation between church and state, the war in Iraq, etc. He was a fantastic writer, simultaneously hilarious and serious, unlike any one else I had ever read. It's just too bad I never really appreciated his work before he died.

This whole year has been a strange one for us atheists. We've had to cope with the deaths of Pulliam and TG Baker, two of the smartest Internet atheists on the web. And the bad news doesn't stop there. Turns out I have a mild form of OCD- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I've always known this, but I never did anything about it since the urges were small and manageable. However, several months ago, they started to interfere with my life. I won't share the details of the affair with you, but I will say this- if you think you may have OCD, check it out and don't wait 6 months like I did for it to get alot worse. And don't feed small habits either. They can get pretty out of control.

So, this has turned out to be a pretty lousy Christmas. Of course, as a wise man once said, it always gets darkest before the dawn... and the dawn is coming.

The wise man that said that is Batman.

Happy birthday to me!

Firstly, I'd like to apologise once again for the empty space in my blog. It's Christmas season, and I've found it very hard to find time to blog in between my video games and Christmas shopping. I'd also like to apologise for not doing any posts on the Divinity of Christ of the Old Testament. I promise I'll do some posts on them after Christmas. Anyways, for those that didn't know, today is my birthday. Typically, I don't celebrate my Birthday that much. Actually, if it were up to me, I wouldn't celebrate it at all! I know it must sound alien to you but trust me- having a birthday close to Christmas sucks. Everyone is stressed out from Christmas shopping and you always get the shitty gifts that weren't good enough to go under the tree.

Today, however, was a very different Birthday. My brothers and two other friends decided to do some drinking. We don't drink often, but when we do, we like to experiment. This time, we tried out Jagger-bombs. I'm still trying to figure out what the hell was I thinking! I didn't feel the intoxicating effects of the Alcohol, so I kept drinking, thinking that I'd eventually get drunk. Well, my body never quite did get drunk, but my head certainly did. During the party, I hollard like a maniac, play fought, and even broke my friends $30 wooden katana by swinging it like a madman (Yes, I know a bit about sword fighting). In my intoxicated state, I agreed to pay for the Pizza's and some of the alcohol; if you include the compensation for the sword I broke, I spent almost $100! We did a few other things too- but I'm not going to share them with you... ever.

Anyways, when I got back at 1:00 AM, I crashed and immediately fell asleep. 3 hours later, I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling like a truck hit me, and having this horrible feeling of dread around me, like an evil spirit was trying to possess me. I tried to remember what happened, but I could only recall a little bit- mostly the stuff I didn't share with you. I've never had a hangover before- but it didn't seem like one based on what I've read on them.

Why am I sharing this story with you. Simple- because, at that very moment in time while I was lying in bed- I started wondering whether there was a God or not. I remembered JP Morelands angel encounter, and was wondering whether that counted as evidence in the affirmative. Than I was wondering whether Satan was behind the party. Interestingly, all my friends and brothers are Atheists and Agnostics, despite the fact that we attended Catholic school. During the party, we started talking about Religion- something we don't talk about much, and all publicly denounced it. Later on, I called my friend Satan, my Brother Screwtape, and myself Beezlebub. Later on, one of my friends started questioning whether Jesus even existed, much to my dismay. Needless to say, It was the most sacrilegious night I've ever had.

Now, I don't know why I felt so strange after waking up. A part of me wants to say it was just the Alcohol- but I think that's too simplistic. Perhaps there's a psychological reason why I still felt accountable for my actions while I lied there in bed. Perhaps it's as a result of being conditioned to feel guilty when I do bad things. Perhaps my brain was trying to make sense of a phenomena it had never experienced before. After all, I've never had a hangover. I suppose I'll never know what happened to me last night. It's just a pity that, unlike my party debts, the experience went away.

What I'm up to now

I haven't been up to much lately. I had a great conversation with Kevin Brown (AKA Diglotting) on miracles that you can follow here. Turns out his experiences and my own were almost one and the same! For anyone that wants to know about my own strange experiences, I blogged about it here. I'm not sure which one of use had the stranger claims; I mean, my mom heard voices and smelled cooking on a few occasions! But than again, Kevin's experiences audio manifestations while awake, while I did not. What I found most fascinating, however, was that we had the exact same phobia of the dark and horrible dreams afterwards, which we both associated with our experiences in the house. The main difference between us was that my phobia gradually went away, while his went away all at once during his "born again" experience. Anyways, I hope to hear from him in a few months, when he's back from his vacation. It seems like, apart from the veridicality of our experiences, we agree on pretty much everything else!

In other news- I look forward to seeing Halliquist review Keeners book on miracles. Don't know how he got the idea to review it *cough cough me*, but I'm happy he did. Halliquist is popular in Atheist circles. When he reviews the book, it'll get a lot more attention from other skeptics, who will hopefully also take a closer look at it and Africa miracles in general. Also, I'd like to thank the commenter Rick for reminding me of the book. For some reason, the first time I heard about it, I just didn't care to probe it. Sorry, but Keener is a biblical scholar- not a Psychologist. He may know a bit about memory and the value of testimony, but not about hysteria, delusions, hallucinations, etc.

Finally, I'd like to say a few words on behalf of the late Tommy Baker. I never mentioned him on this blog- but I did read his posts, and even talked to him a few times. He was a smart guy who really did help raise the quality of Loftus' blog with his posts. Even though I disagreed with him on the Historical Jesus (he was a minimalist; I'm a moderate), I still found his posts very interesting. However, the thing I admired most about him was his dedication to informing the Skeptical movement.

This may seem random, but let me share a story with you. When I first started attending the Mississauga free thought association- I found that there were only three Philosophers. I asked one of them, an Epistemologist, why this was. He said he didn't know. I suggested that they, perhaps, didn't want to be associated with the New Atheist movement. He laughed affirmingly. It's sad, but many smart guys just don't care enough to blog or wrte about Atheism. This causes problems since, well, anyone with eyes can tell that there are far more apologetic books and blogs than skeptical ones. I remember when I first started to investigate the historical Jesus- I had to sift through tons of credulous apologists before I could find even a few skeptics like Carrier and Price- and even longer to find skeptics that were actually respected by scholars, like Vermes and Ludemann.

People like Tommy and Loftus are invaluable to the Atheism movement since, quite frankly, most Internet Atheists are uncritical and credulous. They need someone to at least point them in the direction of good arguments for and against Christianity. Now, as aforementioned- I disagree with them sometimes- but that doesn't matter. What matters is that they are at least trying- and I think that alone is commendable.

Resurrection Sundays: Concluding thoughts

As promised, here is this weeks "Resurrection Sundays" post. It will be a special post since, in addition to being quite late, it will also be my last one. Don't get me wrong- I will always post on the Resurrection. However, it will be the last one with the name "Ressurection Sundays", and the last one to be posted strictly on a Sunday. I had fun making this little series, I really did- but now it's Christmas season, and I have Christmas shopping and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim playing to do. So until further notice, Resurrection Sundays are on hiatus. However- as a little Christmas gift, I will put a poll on the side of my blog, allowing you to suggest to me what topic I should post on next.

Now for the post. To begin, I would like to state that, throughout my posts, I have never claimed to have "debunked the Resurrection". I have never even claimed to be infallible- after all, there is only one pope. However, I do think that I have sufficiently demonstrated why the Resurrection cannot be proven on historical grounds. Alternate scenarios cannot be ruled out. We know that many people can come to hold a false belief. We also know that tombs can become emptied in non-miraculous ways, and that stories of empty tombs have been invented. Long story short, there are alternative explainations that, at minimum, explain away the Resurrection without appeal to the divine.

As mentioned beforehand, we have precedent for claims of visionary experiences from multiple people. Hell, according to this article, angels have been seen and experiences not only Christians, but by Jews and Muslims as well. Although these angel cases are totally anonymous and of extremely poor evidential value, they can still be tell us alot about how easily people will accept unsubstantiated stories. Skeptics have usually argued that these cases arise due to the witness' altering their memories subconciously. Often, when these cases are scrutinized-it is revealed that only one person actually saw the entity, while the others, in a state of hysteria, just went along with it. In faith communities, especially conservative Christian ones, miracle claims are quite celebrated, and it becomes almost a contest of who has the better miracle story. Does this sound like the early Christian church to you? Add some end of the world prophecies to the mix, and I think it does!

Also, when it comes to the empty tomb, it could've been made up. Why not? According to Dale Allison, we have precedent for stories of empty tombs being discovered back in the day. Even if it can be proven improbable- it will always remain a possibility. Of course- the tomb could have been emptied naturalistically as well. For instance, what if the Jews were to have entered the tomb and stole Jesus' remains. Perhaps they didn't parade the corpse around the streets, as they merely wanted to deny Jesus a proper burial- perhaps in protest of Joseph of Aremathea's descision to let him be buried. Going even  further, what if this is the controversy Matt 28:11-15 alludes to? Now, I'm not saying this is what happened- but I am saying that a scenario like this is certainly possible- and perhaps even probable. As Allison maintains througout his excellent book and article on the Resurrection, there are many ways in which a tomb can be emptied naturalistically.

Finally, to conclude this post, I want to remind apologists that the sources we do have come only from believers. We haven't a shred of evidence that any non-Christian living at Jesus' time thought of him as being "unique". To them, he was the same as any other false messiah. He helaed a few people and was eventually killed. I have always felt that this is the very best argument against the divinity of Christ (and by extention, the Resurrection). Jesus' life was just simply unremarkable. He held common false beliefs at the time; he performed the same type of Psychosomatic healings other Pagans and false messiahs did; legends arose around him after he died; etc.

Overall, I think that the case for the Resurrection is strong. However, I also think that the evidence for alien encounters and angels are strong too. In all of these cases, we have groups of people claiming to have seen the same thing. However- angels are often affiliated with New age beliefs incompatible with Christianity, and Aliens are just hard to fit into a world where Theism is true. All these strange phenomena just don't seem to lead anywhere and, as I have argued before, all seem to be incompatible. And that's it for Resurrection Sundays! I hope that you all enjoyed these little posts as much as I have.

I'm cleaning up some of my blog posts

I'm sure some readers noticed that some of my blog posts have been changed since they were first posted. I have learned a few new things from skeptics like CSICOP since my first post in September, so I figured I'd update my older posts to include them. Plus, I forgot to use spellcheck a few times. Recent posts to have been renovated include "Should we pay attention to miracle claims", "A very personal Poltergeist case" and the newly renamed "Christian entity encounters". I guess that's kinda like writing up a real post, right? Alright, I'll right up a real post tomorrow.

How to comment on your own blog posts

Until recently I had not been unable to place comments on my own Blog posts. Whenever I would try to, a message would come up saying "Input error: Cookie value is null for FormRestoration". However, thanks to this article, I can now post comments on my own blog! Apparently, you aren't supposed to check the "stay signed in" box when you log in. Keep that in mind readers.

The Peanut-butter argument for the existence of God

I guess I'll have to convert to Christianity, now won't I?

About me and my blog

I don't know about you, but whenever I visit a blog for the first time ever, I usually look for a short biography of the person running the blog. So, I hope this post will satisfy your curiosity.

My name is Andrew Scicluna. I have recently graduated from college and now have the rest of my working life to look foward to. I like to chat about atheism, so I made a blog dedicated to it. Just keep in mind that I am by no means a professional philosopher, scientist or Historian. I am a layman; and I blog exclusivley from a laymans perspective. However, just because I'm not an expert doesn't mean I can't turn to the relevant experts for answers, right? And indeed, I do this very often- for I value truth above all else.  However, I have come to the conclusion that not every atheist sees things from my perspective.
I spend a lot of my free time trying to understand why Theists reject Atheism- and the common responses to these attacks. For example, usually Theists argue against Naturalism, and than claim that since naturalism isn't true, only Theism can be true. I find this reasoning to be strange, since according to the recent Phil Papers survey, there are actually more atheists that don't call themselves naturalists than there are Theists in professional philosophy.

However, some Atheists are only interested in atheistic apologetics- like the works of the "Four Horseman", or the most recent publication from Prometheus Books. They think religion is poison, that Jesus never existed, and other silly ideas that most intellectual Atheists try to distance themselves from. These people are usually called the "New Atheists". They have garnered much criticism for their lack of understanding when it comes down to Philosophy, Theology and History, and have attracted several Apologetic responses. Now don't get me wrong- these atheists have done some good. They have probably inspired more people to "come out" with their atheistic beliefs than anyone else- even the patron saint of Atheism Bertrand Russell. However, they have also been a constant embarrassment to me- and to many other Atheists. For even Philosopher Michael Ruse admits in his endorsement of "The Dawkins Delusion":

"... "The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist, and the McGraths show why." (Michael Ruse, Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science, Department of Philosophy, Florida State University )"

So, if you agree with me that Atheists should be more intellectually responsible, than this is your site! However, if you think that Acharya S is a serious historian, than maybe not.