Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s “God: An Anatomy”–A Book Analysis Series (Part 3: History, Myth, and Dissecting the Divine…in just under 4,000 words!)

It’s the end of the week and I have a little time to write my third post on Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s controversial book, God: An Anatomy. In these next few posts, I will be diving into the specific things she argues in her book. Truth be told, though, I have been a bit hesitant to get…

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Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s “God: An Anatomy”–A Book Analysis Series (Part 2: Main Arguments and Laying the Groundwork)

Here in Part 2 of my book analysis of Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s controversial book, God: An Anatomy, I am going to lay the groundwork of my book analysis by highlighting what I feel are the main arguments and fundamental problems in the book. In my previous post, I simply gave the backstory that led to my…

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A Book Analysis Series of Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s Book, “God: An Anatomy” (Part 1: A Backstory)

First, a BackstoryThe inspiration for this new book analysis series has a curious backstory.  A few weeks ago, as I was thumbing through my Twitter feed, I chanced across a certain video made by a biblical scholar who has his own YouTube (or is it TikTok?) channel. This gentleman was commenting on something yet another…

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I Was Interviewed to Talk a Little Bit About Irenaeus! Enjoy the most interesting hour of your week!

Hi Everyone. As the title says, a few weeks ago I was interviewed to talk a bit about the early Church Father, Irenaeus. In particular, the talk is in regard to his reading of Genesis 1-3 and the figures of Adam and Eve. I hope you enjoy it!

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Some Thoughts on Martin Luther King Jr. (and Malcolm X) for MLK Day

This year, in addition to my adjunct work, I am teaching high school English full-time at a public charter school. And, for the first time in sixteen years, I am teaching 9th grade English. Without going into a terrible amount of detail, I will say the school is very diverse, to the point where I,…

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Throwing a Bone to Kirk Cameron and Ken Ham—WHAT???

I haven’t written anything about the creation/evolution debate or Ken Ham for quite a long time. In fact, it has been almost a year. Yet although my writing on the topic has decreased quite a lot, I still follow some of goings on in those circles. And since it is the beginning of the new…

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Part 3 of my Critique of Matthew Hartke’s Post About Christianity and Cognitive Dissonance Theory (the end of this post is a bit out there…let’s see what you think!)

Welcome to Part 3 of my short critique of blogger Matthew Hartke’s post in which he puts forth the argument that the best way to explain the birth of Christianity is not the resurrection of Jesus, but rather that after his death, his disciples suffered from cognitive dissonance and who, much like the later Millerites,…

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Addressing the Claim that Jesus’ Disciples Suffered From “Cognitive Dissonance Theory” (Part 2 in my Critique of Matthew Hartke’s Blog Post)

In my previous post, I outlined blogger Matthew Hartke’s basic argument regarding why he thinks Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT) best explains the reason for the rise of Christianity. Again, you can read his post here and my summary of his post here. As for this post, I am going to do two things (all within…

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Critiquing Matthew Hartke’s Proposal that Jesus’ Disciples Suffered from Cognitive Dissonance (Part 1–The Summary)

Matthew Hartke is a former Christian who still writes quite a bit about Christianity and Biblical Studies on his blog. He studied Biblical Studies at Regent University in Virginia Beach. The only reason I mention that is because my brother got a master’s degree in Business from Regent University, while I got a master’s degree…

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A New Book Reflection: “In the Spirit of Happiness” (Part 3: Change and Asceticism)

Later on in the chapter, it says the following: “In chapters 3-4 of In the Spirit of Happiness by the Monks of New Skete, the aspects of spiritual living that come into focus are that of the discipline of change (chapter 2) and Asceticism and Life (chapter 3). The Discipline (and inevitability) of ChangeIt is…

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