Counter-Apologetics

"Invisible spirits" is the worst copout of all. Leprechauns hide because they want you to have faith. The Loch Ness Monster hides because she wants you to have faith. Bigfoot hides because he wants you to have faith. The earth pretends to be round because it wants you to have faith in its flatness.It's a stupid, stupid argument. Why do you waste time with it? That's just dishonest. You yourself reject all kinds of similar beliefs. If there's a reason to reject Zeus and Thor, the same reasoning applies to Jehovah and Jesus. Skepticism is the opposite of gullibility. A skeptic doesn't buy the bridge and then jump off of it. There is no argument there. Look before you leap. Stop trying to psychoanalyze me. You're really bad at it. Nonsense.

Ravi quite often misrepresents actual facts.

He is also a charlatan, with a documented history of impropriety with women not his wife. He is a liar.
RaviWatch - Investigating the false claims of evangelist Ravi Zacharias

That's quite shocking what Steve Baughman claims, but it looks accurate. From what I understand, Ravi and his organization retracted the claims. I'm still reading about the online sexual innuendo. This hurts all of us. We all sin, but individual sin hurts the entire body. I hope that it turns out to not be as bad as accused.The complaint he filed in Federal Court actually indicted him.

quote:

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On July 31, 2017, Mr. Zacharias responded by filing a federal lawsuit against Ms. Thompson and her husband, Bradley Thompson, accusing them of carrying out an extortion scheme against him. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

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Looking only at the evidence presented by Mr. Zacharias we learn that he had indeed carried on an online relationship with Ms. Thompson, one that involved her sending him nude photos of herself. (There was no physical sexual contact between them.)

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Reading further into this from several online sources, Isee the following:

quote:

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In a statement released Sunday, December 3, 2017, Zacharias says he first met the couple in October 2014 while he was speaking at a conference in Canada. An honored apologist and well-known speaker, this was nothing out of the ordinary for him. According to Zacharias, the wife asked him to follow up with her husband, who apparently was questioning the Christian faith. This was the beginning of a correspondence which Zacharias claims was initiated by the wife. When the wife surprisingly sent nude photos of herself in 2016, Zacharias says he “clearly instructed her to stop contacting me in any form; I blocked her messages, and I resolved to terminate all contact with her.”

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According to the couple, however, the correspondence looked more like Zacharias grooming the wife for sexual exploitation. Christianity Today (CT) reports in April 2017 the couple sent a demand letter through their attorney, asking for $5 million in exchange for keeping silent about the correspondence. In the demand letter, the couple state Zacharias exercised “controlling influence over [the wife] as one with spiritual authority.”

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Zacharias’s Federal Lawsuit
Zacharias filed a federal lawsuit against the couple in August 2017, stating the husband and wife conspired together to damage Zacharias and to extract “an exorbitant sum of money” from him. Also stated in the lawsuit is the fact that the couple previously sued a pastor in Ontario, Canada, for allegedly coercing them into unadvisable loans and investments. The couple asked for $1 million in damages, but the lawsuit was ultimately dropped.

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Zacharias dropped his federal lawsuit against the couple on November 9, 2017, after the couple requested mediation in lieu of going to trial. Since then, the two parties have reached a private settlement. While Zacharias has published a statement addressing the settlement, he told CT he is “legally prevented from answering or even discussing the questions and claims being made by some . ” He did wish to assure the supporters of his ministry, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, that no ministry funds were used to pay legal expenses.

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The Hard Lesson Zacharias Learned
Although Zacharias claims he did not do anything to sexually exploit the wife or mislead the couple, he does admit he “failed to exercise wise caution and to protect myself from even the appearance of impropriety.” In the statement, he says he is “profoundly sorry” and that he has acknowledged this “to my Lord, my wife, my children, our ministry board and my colleagues.”

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“The question is not whether I solicited or sent any illicit photos or messages to another woman”I did not, and there is no evidence to the contrary”but rather, whether I should have been a willing participant in any extended communication with a woman not my wife,” Zacharias explains in his statement.

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Ravi claims that he was wrong, yet claims no motive for her sending him the pictures. It looks to me like the couple was trying to set him up, evidence being another lawsuit they failed to cash in on from another minister.So that leaves Charlatan. Any reason why he is one?Granted I dont think he is entirely innocent. He blew it and admitted as much under pressure. This information surprised me, and I am disillusioned with another Christian whom I had looked up to. Perhaps I should learn not to put anybody on a pedestal....neither minister nor scientist. I know a lot of you looked up to Hitchens. And he seemed more honest. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

So has EvC now become a scandal rag?Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

How about all of his lies of his academic achievement, professorships and doctorates. All lies. Charlatan.

Are there any Christian apologists that you *do* respect?

Why would I care? I am an atheist. I think my signature explains it all. These guys know the are defending the undefendable, so they make shit up and lie. All of them.

Speaking for myself, I've never read any, it seems a pointless thing to do. They're just religiously motivated people making stuff up. It's not even philosophy, they're pure works of imagination - fantasy.I've occasionally watched historians talk about the historicity of the bible and Christian religion because they attempt to be factual, but such programmes are rare. The problem there is that most non-religious people have no interest in it and religious people would be outraged by the debunking of their beliefs.I was at university with an atheist that was doing a Christian theology degree. (A rare thing indeed.) She'd been born a Christian so she knew what was being preached. Well it turned out that what was being preached to the masses from the pulpit is not what the accademics where teaching in theology classes. And that of course is true. Virtually nothing in religion as preached is the way it actually is. For example, I was well into my 40s before I found out that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are actually unknown teams of authors and never met Jesus. Nor that there were many 'bibles' not just those. Nor that they were written decades after Jesus's death. Nor that Paul never met Jesus. Nor that there's virtually no evidence of there ever even been a Jesus. The list goes on...

...Correction: Virtually nothing in religion is taught the way it actually is. And a lot of these so-called facts are not conclusive. But you guys will think they are actual facts.

You're making a distinction between 'taught' and preached'? Why? Fact aren't conclusions, they're facts - they stand alone. Conclusions are drawn from them.The things I quoted above are all preached - “Luke says in chapter 4...” As if Luke was an actual person that Knew Jesus. No, we know that they're not facts; we know that they're just stories. But that is not what is taught and preached is it?