Lee Strobel....

[masterjedijared]

I just watched his "Cases" on Netflix for the hell of it.

*brain hurts so bad!*

Are people buying into this? Really?

I guess this is a more general topic for me to bring up. I was wondering what everyone else's opinion on this rubbish is. Obviously my opinion isn't too high.

 

[DepricatedZero]

I'll watch it tonight if I have time and get back to you.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

You only believe it if you already believe it. That's why I think that Strobel was lying at the beginning when he claimed that he was honestly seeking for the truth, because what he accepts is only acceptable to believers.

 

[masterjedijared]

That's my opinion too, Joe. Both of them rely on circular logic. Only people who believe in Jesus will be convinced that there's reasons to believe in Jesus.

What a dishonest croc of jesus-poo.

Also, I agree on his afore mentioned "I was an atheist BUT" spiel. As in, I heavily doubt it.

However, I think the biggest thing that led to his conversion was probably his wife. Unless he was lying, he said his marriage was getting more problematic after she joined a new church and only got better when he 'miraculously' found Jesus. If that's the case like I mildly suspect then I wonder why he would even bother write and produce books and movies that are so bad.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

One of my favorite Lee Strobel moments is one where he defeats himself and then pretends that it makes no sense.

It came from one of his "Faith Under Fire" episodes, where he stages some argument involving a wingnut creationist and a reasonable scientist on the same show. Basically, in a span of 1 second, he ended up destroying his own point.

Strobel : *Talks about the Discovery Institute's bogus petition*, followed with the question --"I mean, when you look at this, don't you think there must be some reason to question Darwinism?"
RealScientist : *Retorts with the info about Project Steve*
Strobel : "Yeah, but science isn't decided by popular vote."
RealScientist : "That's right. And that's exactly why your silly petition is entirely meaningless."
Strobel : "I don't see how that follows."

 

[X-Factor]

My fundy sister gave me a Srobel book in an attempt to give me a "legitimate" case for religion. I didn't even make it through the first chapter because it made my eyes bleed. I need to send her TGD for christmas this year....

 

[Aught3]

My fundy sister gave me a Srobel book in an attempt to give me a "legitimate" case for religion. I didn't even make it through the first chapter because it made my eyes bleed. I need to send her TGD for christmas this year....

The Christian Delusion would also be a good choice, just putting it out there.

 

[Zetetic]

Oh, man. I received this from my dad at some point, but I assumed it was like what my mom was reading at the time (Scott Peck, who is an apologist with similarities but seems to have the most diluted possible form of Christianity blended with pop psychology) so I thought it was innocuous and probably something too vague to be worth trying to argue against.

Recently my dad mentioned it again when I was trying to ask him for an evidential case for biblical truth (he was trying to bring up religion to me, which I usually just ignore because arguing with him about certain things is typically a fruitless endeavor), so I'm going to memorize Burton Mack's arguments and read The Case for Christ in order to build a detailed deconstruction of these conflicting cases, decide to what degree it's reasonable to claim that each historical claim is accurate, and to what degree it's accurate ( I am confident that accuracy will be a rarity).

He's not stupid. He's an attorney, so he is a pro at shifting goal posts and all manner of sophistry when he wants to be. He's got a couple of unfortunate double-think processes going on, one makes him think Sarah Palin is good when she's being relatively innocuous but vacuous in her content, and think that she's bad when she says something over the top. Every time her lunacy exits the news cycle he's shifted his position slowly back the other way and has some excuse for why he isn't doing what it seems like he's doing. It also makes him think Christine O'Donnell is reasonable. This is coming from a guy who was at the top of his law school class.

His second double-think process makes him accept the big bang and want to read Stephen Hawking, but claim that God is the source of some initial event, possibly the big bang, possibly something else, and I am pretty sure he even tried to pull a 'complexity of the eye' argument once but he didn't go through with it. He hasn't tried any sort of irreducible complexity stuff, fortunately. So he's got this 'the universe is orderly and evidence of a creator abounds' idea and at the same time 'well, scientists say evolution is correct (I am not willing to comment because I don't know enough even though it would be nice if it weren't true) and the big bang is correct and quantum physics is correct' and also 'global warming is a liberal hoax propagated by scientist who have been corrupted by the desire for funding'. He has definitely questioned the validity of evolutionary theory by making the point that it is not as certain as the law of universal gravitation (the Relativistic update of it anyway), i.e. it is not as certain that evolution is true as it is that my pen will hit the floor when I drop it. I told him that if he can produce a better theory he can write it up for a journal (well, I really said that in order to change my mind he would have to produce or show me a new theory that fits observed data just as well as Punctuated equilibrium or neo-Darwinism (admittedly I'm not convinced that one is better than the other yet, I just like the neatness of the ideas in the Punctuated Equilibrium approach, I haven't read the in depth criticisms of it, though I have read some of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory)).

Sorry, bit of a long rant.

 

[borrofburi]

You only believe it if you already believe it. That's why I think that Strobel was lying at the beginning when he claimed that he was honestly seeking for the truth, because what he accepts is only acceptable to believers.

and read The Case for Christ

Lee Strobel and his "Case for Christ" were instrumental in my deconversion (not to overstate his influence, as Evid3nc3 reminds us: religion is a network believe, and no single thing caused its downfall). You see, I never cared for proselytizing, I was kind of shy; also the times i watched proselytizing it seemed to be emotional manipulation that really didn't have much to do with the "content" of what was being sold: it could work just as well for any brand of abrahamic faith (later I learned the steps to brainwashing and have always been amazed that so few people notice the connection).

So I decided I'd do something different: I'd argue the atheists into believing it; I mean it's either rational to believe or it's not, right? So I read "the case for christ" because it's supposed to be the rational argument for christianity (not for religion in general, for christianity). I was disappointed... The historical stuff and the supposed "reasons" were pretty ok, but I could not understand why he ended EVERY chapter with several paragraphs of pure emotional manipulation attempts; I mean, this is supposed to be a book about evidence, so why so much mushy crap?

Of course, shortly after that I realized the problems with pascal's wager; and a bit after that I realized that calvinism, despite being the logical conclusions of an omnipotent omniscient god necessarily led to a contradiction (namely that it is impossible to *choose* to believe free will doesn't exist and be right, so when faced with the choice to believe in calvinism or not, it is correct to choose not to believe it (a true calvinist would argue that just proves you were predestined not to choose it, but that's hardly convincing)). And thus fell the entire "believing in christianity is rational" pillar to the network. One of the big influences being that lee strobel's book was, despite supposedly being the best, so very weak.

 

[Your Funny Uncle]

You only believe it if you already believe it. That's why I think that Strobel was lying at the beginning when he claimed that he was honestly seeking for the truth, because what he accepts is only acceptable to believers.

Sounds exactly like the "evidence" supporting conspiracy theorists, alternative medicine, UFOs etc... The problem is that few of the true believers ever seem to realise it.... *sigh*

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Sounds exactly like the "evidence" supporting conspiracy theorists, alternative medicine, UFOs etc... The problem is that few of the true believers ever seem to realise it.... *sigh*

Yeah, but the ones who do REALLY realize it, and wind up becoming if not atheists than at least less satisfied theists.

 

[Randomhobbyist]

Lee Strobel tries to come across as a skeptic and to the blind audience he seems intelligent. When he speaks, he tries talking from the perspective of an educator but you can debunk 90% of his sentences as complete b.s. He doesn't know a thing about science in any regard and he builds his arguments off of faulty premises. If he had an actual debate, the other person would kill his first sentence and his argument would go down the toilet. I give him props for making a name for himself but if he was the sole advocator of his faith, there would be a hell of a lot more atheists in the world.

 

[Mapp]

Strobel is certainly not the worst professional apologist out there. That honor is probably still in the hands of Cameron and Comfort, but Strobel proves that you can sell any kind of snake oil you want as long as you cloak it in pseudo-intellectualism and fancy rhetoric.

 

[AndromedasWake]

I'd love to help Lee Strobel advance his fine tuning argument.

Imagine a ruler as long as the Universe is wide, with each marker having a different value for the strength of Gravity. Now, at the end of the ruler is a pot of gold Bibles. See you when you get back.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Unlike leprechaun gold, bibbles don't disappear at sunrise, more's the pity... :lol: