You mean Steve Hays (assuming that’s the “Steve” in the byline of the article you linked to). He was the founder of Triablogue. But it has long been a periodical with multiple writers.

Yes, I noticed that. That guy was quite condescending, arrogant and aggressive, even among apologists he was among the most despicable. I also found that he died of cancer and heart disease four years ago. I must say I was a little happy when I see that. It was really what he deserved. Someone may accuse me of being too merciless to say this but considering those kinds of Christians often like to curse and delight in the misfortune of people with different faiths, I think this is quite fair to say this.

Right. That’s ancient history now. But Triablogue is a bunch of cranks and amateurs anyway. They never require a response from us. They have lots of rants against my work all over their site. I always ignore them. I have better things to do with my time. Their quality of argument is so bottom barrel that anyone who reads my original piece can already rebut their reply, just using what I already wrote against them.

Anyone who claims to have disproved all of science is wearing a tinfoil hat. They aren’t worth any attention.

That general thesis I agree with, and have argued before (for example, in my critique of the Shermer-Pigliucci row, in the conclusion of my chapter in End of Christianity, especially before that in my note about AI, and in my rebuttal to Moreland on this point in Sense and Goodness without God, and my popular blog long ago on Darla the She-Goat).

And good (secular) values education does indeed do this (i.e. it doesn’t just command obedience to a stated set of values; rather, it explains why you would want to; and that is based on actual pedagogical science which has studied the stages if moral development in children).

You argue more specific things than just that in that article, though. Which might also be correct.

Richard, thanks for considering my comment.
I know that dealing with comments comes at a cost for you, but I would like to emphasise something about my earlier remarks.

You rightly observe that

This has created a serious block against progress in philosophy for sure.

I agree with all your points that follow, but my thoughts were primarily directed at more of a grass-roots level.

My tentative hypothesis is that moral education that insists on a non-self-serving thesis makes it easier for individuals to deviate significantly from an optimal moral path. This is by virtue of (i) the thesis failing to make any sense whatsoever, and (ii) the thesis needlessly failing to appeal to self interest. Those who struggle to evaluate how their needs are best served, find it easier to reject the rules (and commit crimes), because the real advantages of the rules have never been explained to them, in favour of some dogmatic hog-wash, that amounts to, “just shut up and do as I say.”

The truth status of my hypothesis comes, of course, from the real world, and not from anybody’s armchair, but I’m inclined to think we won’t lose much by adopting it.

Cheers.

Celsus had only the Gospels as a source, and no modern methods, nor a modern understanding of the psychology and anthropology of religion. So, that’s why Celsus and Avalos would differ on this.

And note that the passage you cite goes on to make clear Celsus means a historical Jesus was an angel, and Origen agrees with him, arguing only that Jesus was (is) the supreme angel. Celsus has not heard from any ahistoricist sects. He only knows the sects using the canonical Gospels (and the Book of Enoch). The Gospels are his only source. And though he regards them as fabrications, he assumes they are fabrications about their subject as founder. And he assumes that because he has no access to any relevant facts, and thus draws on his primitive assumptions about what he thought was normal in his day regarding mythologized holy men (Celsus is an honest Euhemerist: he believes all mythical gods were once real historical persons, including Hercules, Asclepius, and Orpheus, cf. 7.53).

That is what I answer in my formal article in The End of Christianity and expanded on and colloquialized in Sense and Goodness without God. And I teach a course on it every year online.

I provide some brief summary in the above article as well, as to what actually establishes moral facts as true. See also this.

No, that’s not moral relativism, that’s factual error. People who believe false things about themselves and the world will obviously react differently to events than people who believe true things.

One must not confuse descriptive with prescriptive ethics. That people have different morals is descriptive, not prescriptive. Descriptive ethics is anthropology. Prescriptive ethics is moral philosophy.

Moral relativism is the philosophical theory that moral facts are true relative to the situation of the agent (their culture perhaps, or their differing values, or, as is even hypocritically accepted by moral absolutists, their circumstances, e.g. murder vs. self-defense; needing oxygen to live). Cultural relativism is the scientific fact that different cultures have different moral systems. The latter says nothing about whether those systems are true.