Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – the altar challenge, will Bill Keller take the challenge he offered to a Muslim?

not so polite dinner conversation 13 Minutes

He-believes SuetoniusAh, back into writing about religion. It’s about time, isn’t it?  And can *you* guess what the answer to the question in the title is? Of course you can!

Recently, I noted a post on Ed Brayton’s Dispatches From The Culture Wars, about Bill Keller and his silly challenge to the leader of ISIL, the vermin in the Middle East. Mr. Keller challenged Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to the Old Testament contest found in 1 Kings 18, where the prophet Elijah has two altars built and calls down his god’s power to consume the offering on one. He then has all of the priests of the other god murdered.

In my decades of questioning theists’s claims, I’ve often asked Christians to do this contest with me. I’d bring a Zippo, a industrial sized torch or even just a magnifying glass on a sunny day, and they could pray as long as they said was necessary. Unsurprisingly, everyone refused this challenge giving many excuses: that they weren’t a prophet so their god wouldn’t answer, that this god only did such things thousands of years ago, that their god shouldn’t be tested (belied by the stories of Gideon and the words in Malachi and 1 Thessalonians), that they didn’t have time, etc.

Now, here we can get this done! I thought. He has claimed he is a prophet, so there goes that excuse, and since al-Baghdadi likely won’t answer, he’ll have time in his schedule. Mr. Keller obviously believes this will happen in this modern time, so that excuse is gone too! I promptly sent off a request for Mr. Keller to do the challenge with me at a place and time of his convenience.

Here’s the email I sent (and yes I did use my real name, if you are curious about that, do the work):

Mr. Keller,

I have seen your challenge to the leader of ISIL: ““I will come to Iraq, Syria, any location you desire,” says Keller. “We will each take an unblemished animal, cut that animal into pieces, put those pieces on wood, but not set fire to the wood. Once prepared, you have one hour’s time to call on Allah to rain down fire on your offering. If at the end of that hour Allah has still not answered your pleas, I will call upon the one true God of the Bible … not just to bring down fire on my offering, but yours as well.” “If your god Allah does not answer you … you will resign as the leader of ISIS. You will retire from your life of terror. You will encourage your followers to live in peace and I will be free to return to the United States.”

“If your god Allah answers your pleas by fire [and] my God does not, I will renounce the Christian faith, and you’re free to kill me or do whatever you like.”

I would like to ask you if you are willing to take the same challenge from an atheist, to pray for fire from your god.  I will meet you at a place of your choice in the US (perhaps midway between Florida and Pennsylvania?) with two altars, as you describe above.  You may pray to your god for fire to consume it.  If there is no response, I will use a means of ignition discovered by the scientific method, a Zippo would be a fine choice, to light both altars. These proceedings would be videotaped. If you god answers you, I will be happy to publically announce that I believe in this god, though I would not worship such a being.  If there are no flames, you will publically announce that your god does not exist.   You also may choose to announce that your god does not respond to you if you prefer.  

I look forward to your response.

Lo and behold, I got a response, which I do appreciate. I won’t reproduce it here verbatim until I get permission from Mr. Keller since he has the copyright but I’ll talk about what it said and my thoughts on it.  UPDATE – 9/1/14 @ 8:28 pm.  I got another response, and no refusal of publication.  Mr. Keller has said he was too “bored” to read my email.  So, here is his first response:

LOL..sorry…first..Dr. Keller gets 40,000 emails a DAY…mostly for prayer…there are 700 of us..all retried pastors who work with him to make sure each one is prayed over and answered..Dr. Keller isn’t into “stunts”..but is led by God’s Holy Spirit in all that he does….the things he does are God-led..not simply a game..my suggestion..you will die one day..even a genius like yourself who claims there is no God..meaning you were nothing but a genetic accident and your life is absolutely meaningless..will accept that..at that moment..you will either be correct..and go into the ground like a dead plant..or as the Bible teaches you will stand before God and cast into hell..for your CHOICE to reject Christ..you are clearly worried about the wrong things..and should be focused whether you are willing to stake your eternal soul on the lies of this world..we will pray for you though. 

btw..your offer is foolish since proving God’s existence only requires you do something every day..look into a mirror..there is ZERO explanation for you other than God..glad to have helped and saved you the drama..blessings 

Know that I am praying for you, be richly blessed, Bill Keller Founder,  www.liveprayer.com  To get Bill Keller’s FREE Daily Devotional…sign up at the link below by putting in your email address and look for the confirming email you must reply to…http://www.liveprayer.com/signup.cfm

It is fascinating that prayers aren’t known at all by their god, but must be handled by pastors.   Seems like the same “intervention” as Catholics require.  And I was wrong about 40,000 a year.  Of course, there is not one independent verification of such a strangely high number.  I did get another response which I shall post in a day or two.  It’s even more amusing.

This response was purportedly from one of his “700” retired pastors who handle the prayer requests for his ministry. It began with “LOL”, which didn’t exactly give me any great hopes on the content of the missive. It was also full of ellipses, which always baffles me why anyone does that, other than to make their response rather incoherent. My guess is that this is from Mr. Keller himself considering how the post is written, with claim of “I” do this, etc, and not from a random pastor. We also do not have the name of the pastor which is unusual from my point of view. Why not take ownership of one’s actions? So, from this point, I will treat the letter as written by Mr. Keller. The writer also says “Dr. Keller” but I cannot find any information he has received a doctorate from anywhere, not even in his own biography. This appears to be an attempt to appeal to authority.  I have asked for information where the doctorate came from.

The letter opens with the claim that the ministry gets “40,000” prayer requests a year. (UPDATE: this is supposed 40K per “day”.  I have asked for the email stats for this since there is no independent confirmation of such a ridiculous number. google stats may be able to take care of this. The Exchange server certainly could do this.)  This appears to be an excuse of “I don’t have the time”. This would average out to around over a 100 a day. Certainly the 700 pastors can handle this for a day or two while Mr. Keller tends to altar business?

Mr. Keller then goes onto say that Mr. Keller isn’t into doing “stunts”. This seems to indicate that this challenge by Mr. Keller is now a “stunt”. Or that he wasn’t serious about doing this at all? However, the letter writer states that Mr. Keller is “God-led” by his god into doing everything, which would indicate that Mr. Keller is serious about this “stunt”.

Then we have what is expected from a Christian asked to do complete the challenge he has offered to another religious figure. I am told that I will die one day, a great shock to everyone, I’m sure….. 🙂  I am threatened with hell as usual and the pastor claims that he will pray for me. I am told that I simply must have no meaning in my life and that I am a “genetic accident”.   I am then told that I just have to look in the mirror to see evidence for Mr. Keller’s god because “there is ZERO explanation for you other than God” for it. Except for the claims of nearly every other religion that their god/gods made me exist, all with the usual lack of evidence that Mr. Keller has. This lovely excuse is what is offered instead of doing the altar challenge that Mr. Keller proposed to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. I guess we can see what Mr. Keller’s excuse would have been should the self-described “caliph” accept his challenge.

Thank you, Mr. Keller. You have shown that no one should believe your claims.

The above is the short and sweet version of the story. Now, if you want to read my much longer response to Mr. Keller, with juicy details, here you go: 

Mr. Keller,

I am astonished that you get “40,000” requests a year to do something. That would mean that you get over one hundred requests a day Now, I can believe that you may get a high number of prayer requests because that is what your ministry is based on. Those would not be the same as a request for you to make good on your offer to summon your god’s attention and set an altar on fire. I see that you have a team of people to handle these prayers so again I can see that this seems to be only an excuse given so you do not have to support your claims that you are a prophet of your god like Elijah supposedly was, and that your god will respond to you when called upon as Elijah supposedly did in 1 Kings 18. Now, one would think you would be eager to since you have claimed that other Christians are false prophets, Satanic, etc. It seems that you cannot even support those claims, which would make those instances of bearing false witness against others.

Now, since you have made the offer to the head of ISIL *and* one can safely assume he won’t answer, you have a space in your schedule that your own words have confirmed. Thus your excuse that you can’t possibly meet me to set up two altars and summon your god is just that, an excuse to avoid doing what you have claimed the ability to do. To claim that you can’t actually respond to *anyone* because of a claim of a ridiculously high number of requests for your attention is rather amusing. Pick one, Mr. Keller, and actually show that your god will respond to you. There is nothing preventing you from doing that.

All of your excuses are those that have been used by every charlatan that has ever existed, Mr. Keller.

As for your claim of being entitled to the honorific “Dr.”, I do not see any mention of such a degree in your biography that you have written yourself. You may wish to include this information to support the claim in your biography and perhaps also on your Wikipedia entry.

The style of your email does intrigue me. I mean, really, ellipses with no reason for them other than to make your words somewhat incomprehensible? First you write as if you are not Mr. Keller and then you do write as if you are Mr. Keller. I am guessing that you really are Mr. Keller and want to present more false information to make it seem you are more important than you are. You may be one of these many retired pastors but why not use your own name and take ownership of what you do?

You, Mr. Keller, are indeed into “stunts”, as you call it, when you have publically offered to go to the Middle East and compete with a Muslim to have a god respond to prayer. You have offered to do exactly what I have proposed you do with me. It’s is amusing when you wish to call what you have requested a “stunt”. If it was just a stunt, then you weren’t serious, were you?

I will indeed die one day, Mr. Keller. So will we all. It’s great to see you descend into using threats and personal attacks. I know not all “retired pastors” rely in such things, but in my experience many of you do and are excellent examples of TrueChristians, creating a god in your image and ignoring the parts of the bible that are inconvenient. I am not a genius, though I am quite intelligent. I do not consider calling you out on your claims to be some joke, Mr. Keller. I consider it a very serious matter because I find lies abhorrent, as your god supposedly does per the bible, even lies told for its benefit (Romans 3). I find the only lies acceptable that are to save someone’s life, like the lies told to the Nazis in the attempts to save people like Anne Franke.

A “genetic accident”, Mr. Keller? No, I do not believe that at all. Physics and chemistry work in very predictable ways, at least on the scales we interact with. Thanks to lots of evidence, I accept that evolutionary theory is correct. The same science that shows that evolutionary theory is correct is the same that allows all of us to have modern medicine, criminal forensics, computers, cars, etc. You use all of those things, Mr. Keller, and accept their results. You are a hypocrite for trying to say that it’s okay to accept one part but not all.

There is no need of a god, yours or any others, to make my life have meaning. I do not need to pretend that some magical being will answer prayers when there is no evidence it does. I have plenty of meaning in my life. I do good work that helps people. I love my husband of 23+ years. I have a wonderful family. I have excellent friends. I contribute to causes that help people and animals. And I do my best to show when religion harms people and when theists tell lies. All of this gives my life much meaning and shows that your claims are again false, lies dependent on what you baselessly hope that other people experience. I am also not lonely, bitter, sad, rebellious, etc, all words used by theists against atheists when they hope we are unhappy because we dare not to believe in their, or any, gods.

I do not rely on threats of death and damnation to scare people into obedience like you do, Mr. Keller. You are an unfortunate subset of Christian who needs to pretend that your god has the same hatreds as you do, with no evidence to support that. I know plenty of Christians who aren’t like you at all. Perhaps you’d like to stand with one of them at the altars and see who gets a response?

I do not have an “eternal soul”, but if you can provide evidence that I have, please do so. I am very willing to trust the evidence that neither your god, nor any other, exists. I am an atheist looking for evidence of your god. *You*, Mr. Keller, have claimed to be able to provide it by calling your god’s attention to an altar and getting this god to consume the offering with divine fire. I am asking for you to provide this evidence. If your god exists, and if this god will do anything to help the “lost sheep” (Luke 15) and will give evidence to a doubter like Thomas without hesitation (John 20), then it, and you, should have no problem in doing this act.

You finally claim that I just have to look in the mirror to see “proof” of your god’s existence. Really? A Muslim would tell me the same thing, and have as much evidence as you do that he was right – none. So would an shaman from New Guinea, a Wiccan priestess from San Francisco, a Asatru from Wisconsin, a Zoroasterian, a Sikh guru, and a Hindu priest. How can we tell that you are the only right one and all of them are wrong? Ah yes, that altar test, right?

I again offer you the chance to make good on your claims. You may indeed pray for me, Mr. Keller. I have had hundreds of Christians, and a few Jews and Muslims, claim to do so. Some say they will pray for God to reveal himself to me. Some say that they pray for my mind to be changed forcibly by this god. Over the 20 or so years I have questioned the claims of theists, nothing has come of those prayers. Why is this, Mr. Keller? Is your god happy with me as I am, an honest atheist? Is your god damning me with no chance, like Romans 9 declares, and the Calvinists are right? Is it that your prayers are ignored by your god because he doesn’t like you? That you didn’t pray in the “right” way, whatever that is? Or is it that there are no gods at all? I know all about prayer. When I was losing my faith, I prayed to this god for help retaining it. I read the bible, did all of the things I was told. Nothing happened. Why is this?

Now, I can look at the geologic record and see another well-supported idea showing why I exist, the increase of complexity of organisms over time, all inexorably leading to one branch of life that is primates. I also see in the geologic record no nonsense about a massive global flood. Again, there is plenty of evidence against your particular religion being true, Mr. Keller. And nothing to say your particular sect of it is right.

Thank you very much for your response. I have long hoped for someone regarded as a pastor to make the claim you have about the altar, since other Christians have claimed that no one can do that because they aren’t real prophets, that this god only did these “stunts” back thousands of years ago, etc. In that you have said that those Christians are all wrong by your words, and you have refused to do the same challenge you have offered to someone of another religion, you have done an excellent job of proving my point, that Christians do not agree with each other and have no evidence for their claims. I will be mentioning your remarks in a blog pose of mine, which you will be able to find at clubschadenfreude.com in a few days. I will not reproduce your email without your permission but will address what it says. If you wish the email reproduced in toto so there may be no mistake in what you said, please tell me and I will make it available.

Thank you for your time.

Part 2 of this conversation is here.  Part 3 is here.

Published by clubschadenfreude

intelligent, female, atheist, science fiction fan, great cook, excellent alewife, cat lover

Published

45 thoughts on “Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – the altar challenge, will Bill Keller take the challenge he offered to a Muslim?”

    2. hey, John. I got another response from Keller. I have posted his first response on in this post as an update. One can’t expect better than this. I’ll post the response I got for my longer response. This second response even has capital letters tell me how much the “retired pastors” and Bill Keller don’t care about anyone who dares ask them a question and hold them accountable.

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      1. Excellent, can’t wait to see it! ALL CAPS, huh? How civil. Now i’m certain this needs to be edited into something for Keller’s local newspaper. Don’t let go of it, Club. Take this to its merry ends, and I’ll be happy to help if needed.

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      2. well, the “important parts” are in caps, not the whole thing. Keller, or one his minions, is quite the correspondent. I’ll have a part two blog post with more fun.

        I will do the oped but there is basically no chance that anything like that would ever get published in US south newspapers.

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      3. I wouldn’t be so sure. A Kentucky newspaper is calling for Ham’s Creation museum to lose its tax-exemption. Now, if Kentucky can do it, the South can be moved. Surely there’s a liberal-press there who’d be open to this?

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      5. Okay, help! I got this down to 486 words. I can’t see that it can be much shorter. Any ideas? Just leave it like it is?

        “Pastor Bill Keller, a controversial Christian televangelist based in Florida, has offered to go to the area that ISIL controls, and perform the altar challenge from 1 Kings 18, where the prophet Elijah had two altars built and his god responded by lighting the altar. Mr. Keller said that if his altar lights and al-Baghdadi’s did not, the Islamic leader would have to cease leading ISIL and convince his followers to lead lives of peace; if Mr. Keller’s did not light, and al-Baghdadi’s did, he would renounce the Christian faith. This offer was made in June and still stands per Mr. Keller.

        As an atheist and former Christian, I was curious about this familiar challenge. I had offered to do this challenge with believers of the Judeo-Christian faiths in the past. No one had taken up the challenge, citing that they were not prophets, their god did not do such things anymore, they had no time. In that Mr. Keller has claimed to be a prophet, believes that this action by his god will be done during these modern times, and has the time to make the arduous trip to the Middle East, he appears to be the ideal candidate for this challenge.

        I proposed that we set up the altars just like he specified. He could specify the time he needed to pray and I would have the instruments of technology to light my altar, anything from a Zippo to a magnifying glass on a sunny day. I offered to meet him anywhere he would like, proposing a point midway between his home in Florida and mine in Pennsylvania. This offer was sent to Mr. Keller’s ministry via his email address.

        I did receive a response, several of them. They purportedly were from one of his 700 volunteers who supposedly answer 40,000 prayer requests a day. I was told that Mr. Keller does not do “stunts”, that I am not sufficiently important enough to him, that I am stupid, that I will go to hell, etc. I was told that Mr. Keller didn’t need to do the challenge because I merely had to look into a mirror to see that God was the only possible being that could have created me. Unfortunately, that last is what many, if not, all religions, claim, that their god is the creator.

        I have asked Mr. Keller repeatedly to join me for the challenge he made. I continue to get insults and excuses. It seems that Mr. Keller is indeed only interested in “stunts” and not following through with them, for no more than getting his next fifteen minutes of fame and donation. There is little reason to think neither that this man has any special line to his god nor that he can more effectively pray than anyone else. He is simply one more charlatan, running away from his claims when someone asks for evidence that they work.”

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      7. Thanks,John. I’lltake a look over things later.

        Oh noes, I’ve been supposedly banned by Mr. Keller. What is very amusing is that he is sending me emails with the word “banned” on them, very strange for something coming from a “large organization” that supposedly gets 40k emails a day. You’d think that they’d have a filter already set up that would simply memory hole any emails coming in.

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      9. Thanks, Mak. I have supposedly been banned by Mr. Keller, though it seems that someone who gets 40K emails per day has no idea on how to actually do this.

        Will keep everyone posted. 🙂

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      10. I am reading the second post you did. Talking to these people is a waste of your good time.
        Who are your 12 friends they mention?
        And why appeal to numbers as if that is going to make their claims any true?

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      11. I find it a fairly good use of my time to show how Mr. Keller and representatives lie. This nonsense gives me something to do.

        I do wonder myself about these 12 friends. You and John are great but alas, do not consist of 12. It seems that the number is yet another lie. 🙂

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      12. They will have to show how they got to the 12 unless they are making you a Jesus with 12 followers then am number 2 follower 😀
        And I will be waiting for their debates with top atheists whoever they are. They can give us the youtube link. I think that can do for us.

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  2. Aside provincial ridicule of Christians by the common atheist there is a great and almost obvious difference between iSLAM and Christianity.

    The life of Jesus was witnessed by thousands of people from all over the Mediterranean and Near East.

    Alas, all anyone has as a witness for iSLAM is an Arabian scheister who called himself the Prophet.

    So its the Christian thousands and thousands verses the iSLAM one and only.

    Also lost on the provincial atheist is the radically obvious difference between the Christian West and those areas under the boot of the Jihad.

    Historians love the Christians of the Middle Ages because where ever they went, literacy followed.

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    1. Hey, SOM, haven’t seen you since July. In that episode, we have you running away from questions asked of you and requests for evidence for your claims. I’m still waiting, SOM, show us that the AFA is a “proven train wreck”. Answer this please since it’s been asked of you: “Now, I do wonder, SOM, what would you do if your employer said you couldn’t do something outside of work because of *their* religious beliefs?” and “What if you employer was Muslim, and thought sharia law was just peachy? Would you say it’s okay for them to try to control you or any other employee?” How about these too: “The lovely folks at Hobby Lobby depend on other people breaking the Sabbath to make their products and to get their products to them. Now where are they complaining about that, SOM? Why aren’t they killing those people since that is what God commands? Is it too inconvenient? Darn. Isn’t it just fabulous on how TrueChristians pick and choose what to be so concerned about?” Or this “The government makes businesses pay for insurance. I’m sure you have some of that insurance. Should your employer be able to tell you what medical treatment you can have?

      But let’s address what you are claiming now. It’s so great to see such a TrueChristian coming slinking back thinking that no one will remember he ran away. And coming back with baseless personal attacks as usual. How nostalgic. Provincial? I used to live in a rural area. Not so much now. I’m certainly not restricted in only being interested in local matters. Perhaps another word would fit better, rather than ones you pick because you think they are so insulting.

      Provincial ridicule? Nope, just the exposure of a liar, SOM. I could have had a great time using ridicule on this twit but it wasn’t needed at all. I only needed what he said to show he was a liar.

      You claim that JC had “thousands of witnesses”. That is not true. We have the bible’s claims and nothing to support them. You may try to offer evidence for your claim. I know many, if not all of the nonsense Christians claim and they fail. We have claims of thousands of people meeting JC just outside of Jerusalem, an occupied city. No one noticed a legion’s worth of men outside of a occupied city? Now why is that? And I do love how Christians want to, on one hand, pretend that JC was known by everyone, but when it’s pointed out that there is no evidence for this, then they claim that why should Rome be interested in such an unimportant man. It would help if TrueChristians could agree on what story they wanted to tell.

      We even have Christians who can’t agree on when this magical man was born, where he was born, and what he meant when he supposedly told stories. We do have historical references to Christians, not Christ. If you want to claim references to Christians as evidence, then we have plenty of evidence of the existence of all sorts of gods, including Allah. I always get to see claims of how the numbers of Christianity are evidence for how “right” Christians are, but you only get big numbers if you count every possible adherent to Christ. When you don’t want to do that, then you whine how such and such sect aren’t “real Christians” and oh woe is you on how you are such a persecuted “minority”.

      I do love how you are so ignorant of your own religion and others that you imagine that your religion is so much better. In Christianity, we have a bunch of unknown authors who make baseless claims about a messiah that has no evidence. Indeed, to use your words, what a bunch of “scheisters” who can’t agree if Jesus was so human like he wept in the garden, or if he didn’t and had no problem with going to the cross. We have no evidence that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, ever existed. No more than we have evidence that Mo rode to Jerusalem on a magic pony and took dictation from an angel. At best, one may postulate one itinerant rabbi who wandered around professing to be the messiah as many did at that time, and who had a lot of myths associated with them. Myths that have no basis in fact. Now, if you want to tell me that you worship an everyday Jew who thought he was magical, that’s great. Are you willing to do this?

      So, again, SOM, you are shown to be a liar and your argument false. But please do tell me what this “radically obvious difference between the Christian West and those area under the boot of the Jihad”. Or is this going to be one of those claims that you hope others will fill in for you, more of your shit that you throw at a wall and hope some sticks?

      You also are a liar when you claim historians “love” the Christians of the Middle Ages. No, SOM, literacy did not follow Christianity in the Middle Ages. It stayed locked up in the monasteries and churches, where the church said that no one should be able to read the bible on their own. It took the ridiculousness of Henry VIII and the Papacy to get the bible into the hands of the people, a murder and more murderers insisting that each knew what their god “really” meant. We have Christians destroying books, SOM. We have them writing over ancient treatises with their repetitive prayers to a god that does nothing. We have them killing a librarian and destroying the Library of Alexandria.

      Try again, SOM. Your lies are worthless here. But they are fun to watch because it shows you have no more belief in your god than I do because you have no problem ignoring its laws.

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    2. The life of Jesus was witnessed by thousands of people from all over the Mediterranean and Near East.

      Really SOM? And not one of these thousands were apparently moved enough, or impressed enough, to jot down a single word, scratch a single piece of graffiti into a wall, or draw a single drawing.

      Odd, huh?

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      1. Present day atheists are information illiterate, which is inexcusable.

        However, most people alive during the time of Jesus were alpha-numberic illiterates which is completely understandable.

        Just as modern atheists don’t have the brain power to understand simple proofs of God’s existence, they also simply can’t imagine a world different from the modern Christian Western Civilization that they so much.

        Just as the Romans attempted to wipe Israel off the map in 70AD, the Jews tried to do the same to Jesus.

        You might want to look up the life of Saul of Tarsus, aka Saint Paul.

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      2. Always entertaining, but also always sadly mistaken, SOM. In 64 CE the Jewish high priest Yehoshua ben Gamla appointed teachers in every town and village of every province throughout Palestine to provide an education for boys aged six and up. Regarded as the founder of formal Jewish education for children Gamla’s sweeping policy directive assumes a vast stock of professionally literate laypeople ready to fill classrooms in every miniscule, deadbeat, backend, go-nowhere village across Palestine which, in-turn, presupposes that major regional centers already had well established education systems dating back decades, if not well into the 1st Century BCE.

        You can read all about this failed illiteracy argument in my post: Jesus Christ: Just Not Worth a Sheet of Paper

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      3. More false witnessing, SOM? How nice. Sorry, as John has shown again, you are lying.

        Please do show us these “proofs of God’s existence”, SOM. I would love to see which ones you think are proofs of your god’s existence. I’m waiting.

        and that they what “so much”, SOM?

        it’s great to see you mention Paul of Tarsus. He’s such a great character in the myths. Quite an amusing bunch of letters he wrote, some of the best sources to show that the Bible is just as vicious in the NT as it is in the OT.

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    3. Wow are you actually just trying to make Christianity look bad or are you that terribly blind to that when Christianity reigned supreme, technical advances basically stopped while science was still advancing in the Middle East until they too were arrested by religion? Are you that terribly blind that both books claim thousands of witnesses, yet both are about the hearsay of one to four supposed direct witness and both have zero evidence?

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  3. You can be polite my dear. I wouldn’t have managed to respond with such politeness.
    Great challenge now if only he could take it up. Not having time will not fly. He is willing to fly to Syria. That would definitely be more than a one day affair, they can change the itinerary and meet you in Penn [ please take a video for me :D]

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    1. trust me, it’s been a challenge to remain polite. Thanks for pointing out that flying to Syria would not be a one day trip. I hadn’t thought of that. 🙂

      heck, if this would happen, I’d hire a professional video crew.

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      2. And you managed the challenge well. I can’t wait for the response to your letter and as JZ has suggested, your response deserves a place in a daily newspaper with a broad circulation

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  4. Pingback: Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – part 2 of the Bill Keller saga, where excuses roam free | Club Schadenfreude
  6. Pingback: Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – Part 3 of the Bill Keller saga, brave brave Sir Bill | Club Schadenfreude

      1. thank you guys. I hope you continue to hammer him.
        i used to watch his show every nite from 2006-08, until he got tossed off the air.
        I’m not really sure why, but I’ve had a fascination with religious scam artists since i was a child. keller is one of the worst.
        i, had made an earlier website about him and his scam and got threatened with a lawsuit.
        I’ve also been “BANNED” at least a dozen times.

        the man is a total fraud and i can’t wait until the day he gets busted, AGAIN.
        as keller would say, “LOL…LOL…LOL…be richly blessed.”

        🙂

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      3. hi John, I just checked keller’s facebook, apparently he removed your post?????? sorry I missed it.

        oh, one more thing, if anyone corresponds with keller, refer to him as “Billie” or “Felon Keller”. he loves to call people names and it drives him nuts when you do it to him.

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      4. Hehehe, I’ll keep that in mind. I couldn’t post on his wall, but sent a FB message. Not the same, but his eyes would have been forced to see it, which is fun 🙂

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  9. Pingback: Undeniable Proof of the Middle Eastern Christian God, Coming Soon! | the superstitious naked ape

  11. I have found out as of late there is no actual mention of a flying horse in the Quran. It is in such flowery vague metaphorical language it seems to indicate a possible flying horse, or not; or it could have been a vision, or not. The belief in the actual flying horse is not uncommon amongst several sects of Islam, just as is the lack of belief.

    When this is supposed to be the VERY IMPORTANT words of a timeless cosmic all being, you’d think he’d be a little more inclined to clarity.

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  12. I had to cut hard, but here you go:

     “Pastor Bill Keller, a Christian televangelist based in Florida, has offered to go to the area that ISIL controls, and perform the altar challenge from 1 Kings 18, where the prophet Elijah had two altars built and his god responded by lighting the altar. Mr. Keller said that if his altar lights and al-Baghdadi’s did not, the Islamic leader would have to cease leading ISIL and convince his followers to lead lives of peace; if Mr. Keller’s did not light, and al-Baghdadi’s did, he would renounce the Christian faith. This offer was made in June and still stands per Mr. Keller.

    I proposed via his ministry’s email that we set up the altars just like Mr. Keller specified. He could specify the time he needed to pray and I would have the instruments of technology to light my altar. I offered to meet him anywhere he would like, proposing a point midway between his home in Florida and mine in Pennsylvania.

    I did receive several response purportedly from one of his volunteers. I was told that Mr. Keller does not do “stunts”, that I am not sufficiently important enough to him, that I am stupid, that I will go to hell, etc. I was told that Mr. Keller didn’t need to do the challenge.

    It seems that Mr. Keller is indeed only interested in “stunts” and not following through with them, for no more than getting his next fifteen minutes of fame and donation. There is little reason to think neither that this man has any special line to his god nor that he can more effectively pray than anyone else. He is simply one more charlatan, running away when someone asks for evidence that they work.”

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  13. Pingback: Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – a bit of nostalgia and still no effects from prayers by professionals – Club Schadenfreude

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