For anyone in the greater Seattle area, the NW Miracles Conference will be held on Saturday, March 30, 2019 in Sequim, WA (a couple of hours northwest of Seattle and Tacoma). The speakers include:
- Michael Shermer. Dr. Shermer is the founder and editor-in-chief of Skeptic magazine and author of Scientific American’s Skeptic column. He will debate local Christian Luuk van de Weghe on the topic, “Are the Miracles of Jesus Unbelievable?” (I debated his father Rob a couple of years ago on “Is it Reasonable to Believe in God?” Discussion and video of that debate here.)
- Justin Brierley. Justin is the host of the UK-based Unbelievable? radio show and podcast and the Unbelievable? conference. Justin does what apparently is impossible in the U.S. by putting Christians and non-Christians together weekly and having a civil and informative conversation. I highly recommend the podcast. Justin also organized the 2012 Atheist Prayer Experiment, in which I participated. (My posts on that experiment: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.) Justin will be the conference moderator.
- Sean George and Bradley Bowen. Dr. Sean George is an Australian doctor whose heart stopped for an hour but was eventually revived with no brain damage, and Seattle-area atheist Bradley Bowen is a frequent blogger on the Secular Outpost blog at Patheos. Bradley will put on his philosopher’s hat and debate another philosopher, Hans Vodder, about Dr. George’s miracle claim.
Find the entire schedule here.
I’ll be there. Look for me if you attend!
What I found [in reading the Bible]
was that most of the Bible was neither horrible nor inspiring.
It was simply dull and irrelevant:
long genealogies written by men obsessed with racial purity;
archaic stories about ancient squabbles over real estate and women;
arcane rituals aimed at pleasing a volatile deity;
folk medicine practices involving mandrakes and dove’s blood;
superstition that equated cleanliness with spiritual purity
and misfortune with divine disfavor;
and outdated insider politics.
— Valerie Tarico
was that most of the Bible was neither horrible nor inspiring.
It was simply dull and irrelevant:
long genealogies written by men obsessed with racial purity;
archaic stories about ancient squabbles over real estate and women;
arcane rituals aimed at pleasing a volatile deity;
folk medicine practices involving mandrakes and dove’s blood;
superstition that equated cleanliness with spiritual purity
and misfortune with divine disfavor;
and outdated insider politics.
— Valerie Tarico
.
Image from Eric Welch, CC license
.