Chuckling Atheist

I'm hardly a kid. Check the profile.

Chris Weimer

Your age is irrelevant to you being a kid, kid.

IRON MAN

Penn & Teller pwn religion, mystics, lefty wankers and other intellectually dishonest fuckheads. :thumbs:

Chuckling Atheist

Says who?

Chuckling Atheist

I've only seen this one episode. I don't get Showtime sadly.

IRON MAN

The show is not available to us in Australia either. That is what the internet is for. :thumbs:

I have a friend who deconverted from PC-lefty-wankerdom from watching that show.

Now he's out clubbing baby seals and blaspheming deities with the best of them.

The only problem he has now is that all his friends he used to hang around with think I've turned him into a warmonger, (he sells technology to the US military which they undoubtedly use in Iraq to blow up schools and shit, etc).

Some people are so fucking touchy.

John Kesler

Penn & Teller do a good job of debunking alleged psychics and con men of all stripes, but their show about the Bible was easily their worst. So many times I see discussions in which the Christian side is represented by an actual biblical scholar, while his opponent is some all-purpose skeptic who seems to think that Bible scholars can be defeated as easily as moon landing conspiracists. P&T should have done what they do in other episodes--get another expert in the field to offer rebuttal. Rather than Michael Shermer, why not a real scholar like Mark S. Smith discussing the evolution of God or William Dever discussing the lack of archeological evidence for some biblical stories?

rob117

Because actual scholars in the field know that this is a really touchy subject for many people and don't want to be associated with professional debunkers. They will discuss the lack of evidence for biblical stories (and the evidence that directly contradicts biblical stories) in books and articles that deal with the archaeology of the region as a whole, but will not do an appearance with the explicit purpose of debunking. In the eyes of the public, they would lose credibility (and hence grant money).

Qam1

I like the show but I think it really needs to be an hour long. With the ½ hour timeframe it often seems they are rushed and they often depending on the subject matter either have to leave a lot out or jump all over the place trying to cramm as much in as possible.

Especially with the Bible one, they should have at least done a two parter with that one.

John Kesler

Penn & Teller did a good show about creationism. Obviously if creationism isn't true, then this undermines the credibility of Genesis, at least as interpreted by fundamentalists. So, too, rather than taking on "the Bible" in one fell swoop, P&T should have focused on another aspect of the Bible, such as evidence, or lack thereof, for the exodus from Egypt and subsequent wilderness wanderings. This would have been less threatening, and in the end, more effective. If the show were limited in scope like this, I bet that someone like Dever, Smith, etc. would be willing to participate.