Mike Mai was a SDA (Seventh-Day-Adventist) PIT (Pastor-In-Training) who discovered the founder of his Church: Ellen G. White was actually a false prophetess. Ultimately this lead Mike to inevitably question everything, not merely his own denomination and Church, but his own faith in the Bible, and Christianity as a whole, and finally God's existence. Mike eventually became an atheist and at the end of his documentary he seems to exhibit or express at-least some anti-theistic sentiment.
I recommend watching his documentary as a whole to hear all of Mike's views in context and understand and try to be sympathetic to his journey. Many former-Christians (including those who become Atheists) happen to go through a similar journey. As Mike suggested they are also merely humans and need love like all of us. I know I felt someone what emotionally connected as a reminder of my own story. I am not going to be addressing Mike's intentions or honesty here. I am not even going to call Mike unto Christianity, Jesus, the Bible or faith. I am only going to offer some academic disagreement. Specifically I will address the sections: "The Bible & Christianity" (PART IV: 27:23-44:35) and "The Science of God" (PART V: 44:35-52:45) that is from 27:23-52:45.
The positive impression I get is that Mike is a good, decent and honest guy. I agreed with virtually everything from 0:00-27:23. I appreciated the sincere expression of his journey from belief to disbelief (or "non-belief") and he definitely has film-producing/editing skills along with a great narrative voice. He is obviously read and intelligent. I also enjoyed some of his own observations such as the point about evangelism causing more damnation than salvation, really interesting, and as a Universalist, I must fully concur and agree with this critique of the traditional view.
I have some areas of disagreement, or what I view to be constructive feedback/criticism.
I will begin with what I view as the biggest blunders. The last segment in the Christianity-Bible section seems to be the most disappointing. The theory that Jesus is "an observable revision of numerous previous characters" otherwise known as the mythicist "pagan-copy-cat hypothesis" which was even a controversial theory (and rejected by the vast majority) among mythicists in the 19th century and some early scholars in the early 20th century, has been completely abandoned by mainstream academia due to robust scholarly research that even the most dogmatic fundamentalist Christian will be able to point out (here are some examples):
Where I really raised an eye-brow was after he advocated this theory [41:12-42:09]. He then immediately contradicted it by pointing to the view of an Orthodox Jew who in-turn purported the historical Jesus was really "one of them" (i.e. Jewish). But this is so trivial as to be not even be controversial in the slightest. Every scholar in the field believes Jesus was a Jew, that is a Judean, raised in Nazareth, Galilee. The Bible itself attests to this fact. But if this is true, how could Jesus merely be an amalgamation or composite of pagan saviors and deities? Either he is a real historical person who lived in the province of Judea under the Roman empire or he was a comport of various mythologies, showing he belongs in the category of legend or myth over that of a real historical Jewish man.
The more plausible theory (and hence consensus position), of course is that Jesus was merely a Jewish man. However, even on this account he (or his Orthodox Jewish colleague) get some basic facts wrong.
There is no evidence Jesus was a "greater teacher of Hillel the elder", zero, zilch, zada. There is no evidence Jesus knew Hillel or even knew of him. We can speculate that they "may" have known "of" one other (one or both), but it's simply a guess, and the reasoning for this would only be circumstantial.
Similarly there is no evidence Hillel wrote the Talmud (which came much, much later) or was viewed by the Sahendrin as a nemesis (that comes from late Talmudic tradition).
Mike gave examples of the similarity between the doctrine of Jesus and Hillel (e.g. the golden rule), but that was common knowledge among the Jewish faith of the time. Torah observant Jews were accustomed to such views and would have been largely aware of such teaching.
It is obvious that Jesus neither lived in a vacuum, or remained isolated from his heritage. He would have been influenced by his environment and as an observant-Jew believing the teachings of the Torah, it is clear he even partook in an inter-faith debate among Pharisees who variously interpreted the Law within their unique schools of thought.
The Talmud was not written "long before Jesus" as Mike suggests, but the Talmud is dated by scholars at-earliest to the 4th-5th centuries (written in a dialect of Syrio-Aramaic contemporary to that period, a dialect that simply did not exist at the time of Jesus in the first century) and wasn't fully edited to be complete until the 7th-8th century.
Some scholars have argued some traditions in the Talmud are earlier and can be dated to the second century, but very few are dated to the first century. This Hillel saying referenced could stem from the first century, because it is most likely a common doctrine among the period, however it is clear Jesus (like most teachers) gave his own unique expression and articulation of the doctrine.
The most prolific writers in the world at the time, were not in Jerusalem. In-fact the greatest figure of the province and Jerusalem in-particular, the Roman pontificate Pontius Pilate is not attested to by any Judean Romans or Jews, and the only exclusive documentary evidence of his existence comes from Philo of Alexandria, Egypt, who visited Jerusalem.
There is no record of Jesus or his 12 disciples "lobbying the emperor of Rome himself" so we wouldn't expect any contemporary reports of that.
Finally, perhaps while it is true that the authors of the gospel imported more theological importance and significance in their depiction of Jesus in the Gospels, that is because they were not merely historians, but theologians, preaching the Resurrection, which they genuinely believed in, and they were merely using the contemporary literary devices of their own genre to emphatically communicate that belief.
I was also a former Christian who deconverted over along-process of doubt, skepticism, varying agnosticism and criticism, it took me many years, but I finally ended up as an atheist. Ironically after 6-7 years as an atheist I had another deconversion process from atheism to theism, but that's for another time. I thought given my past-experience I might relate to this section the most, but I can't say I did. Mike had some profound epiphanies, like the realization that variations of the flood story pre-exist the Torah or that the Bible is not inerrant, but errs and has many contradictions. But even large sections of conservative evangelical scholarship have recognized such realities and remain unhinged.
THE FLOOD
To begin with I'm not a YEC, nor do I accept a Global Flood Hypothesis. In-fact ever since my original deconversion from Theism, I have never accepted Creationism again and I vehemently condemn such a belief. But I think I do slightly understand their views better than Shermer. The idea for creationists is not that 10 million species existed at the time of the flood and they were all stored on-board, but a vastly smaller quantity. They believe rapid-speciation occurred after the flood, producing most of the complexity and biological diversity we observe today.
But the simple fact is that the only camp to believe in a global-flood among Christians are the YECs who are scorned by the rest of Christendom. There are not only good reasons scientifically to reject such a view, but Biblically as-well.
For starters the word translated for "earth" in the Hebrew Scripture is also translated as just "land". And we often read our own import into texts, but the world at that time consisted of what scholars call the: Ancient Near East. That is it barely went beyond Egypt (I think maybe a couple authors mention some places further south of Egypt), and eastward the biggest empires known to the Biblical authors were the Babylonians, Assyrians and Persians, but never say: the Indians and Asians.
Hence despite the occasional exhaustive language we read in our translation like "all/every beast, animal etc" what we are dealing with from our stand point, looking back into history is a significant flood that took place in ANE, that is a local flood to us, but to them a universal one, decimating all.
While YEC "scientists" cannot fathom anything outside of hyper-literalism, the vast majority of Scholars in Biblical studies (including the religious and secular ones) have no trouble at all in seeing how this interpretive dynamic plays a major role. The world as understood by Ancient Israelites was not the world understood by post-modern contemporary westerners. For them the flood was of earthly proportions and for us interpreting an ancient text we can see the localization of the phenomena, because the Earth is a sphere, and we are well aware of borders existing outside the Ancient East.
I can easily imagine a traditional fundamentalist coming up with an accommodating framework for factoring in instances of local flood-traditions. They may argue that the Epic of Gilgamesh is evidence in favour of the Biblical account, since it doesn't completely match up with the Genesis narrative (it can't be collusion or plagiarism), and Moses and his enslaved Egyptian peers were not directly influenced by the Sumerian or Babylonian empire. This would mean that multiple flood-traditions were handed down to various tribes in distinct empires, successively generation upon generation and none of them completely corroborative (variance occurs upon oral development), but showing all of them must stem from an even more common and ancient origin. In-fact I'm sure that would be a hypothesis even a historian or secularist would be inclined to accept, perhaps they may view the flood-narrative traditions as less universal or less broad, (as say the fundamentalist YEC), but the general thesis that a group of transnational flood-legends derive from a common source is reasonably plausible.
THE EXODUS
Mike asserts there is no archaeological evidence to support the Exodus, but even the non-fundamentalist, liberals, and various historians, egyptologists and secularists have interpreted various evidences or archaeological findings as supporting the Exodus account. I don't see Mike as having provided a fair usage or treatment and analysis or the various contrasting view-points. He appears to select the most obvious theories that support non-belief. Even among archaeologists, despite there being a tendency to be prone to the skeptical side of the Exodus, you don't seem to understand or at-least mention: there is no monolithic position. There is just the 'majority' position, but the 'majority' position itself has a bundle of holes that any fundamentalist can exploit as easily as someone attempting to discredit the fundamentalist position. That is of course because no interpretation of this history is fully cohesive, and all suffer from discrepancies. The question is this: Is the traditional Christian (or Jew) required to become committed to the least traditional position, which suffers from a similar historically dubious framework? There doesn't seem to be a reason to relinquish one view for another when both have historical difficulties, but at-least they have some historical elements, so they aren't completely arbitrary either.
DO CONTRADICTIONS MATTER?
Regarding the 'contradictions' brought up, I would be the first to agree there are multiple contradictions, discrepancies and errors in the Bible that cannot plausibly be reconciled. However most of the examples provided are not obviously irreconcilable. You could take them as all contradictory, but it isn't actually shown to be necessary requirement, or even the most plausible interpretation demanding the text be interpreted in a contradictory fashion.
Besides, that would display a violation of the principle of charity, in that we could literally do that not only to any complex, vague ancient library of literature, but we can do the same with modern literature, even within the confounds of the same book by the same author.
One major aim and key theme of hermeneutics is to understand the original intent of the author of any document and what they intend to communicate. That means we are all speculating to a degree, including those who have this kind of dogmatic certitude, that their own interpretation, that a contradiction exists has to be conclusive, when various passages could contain multiple layers of interpretation that are vague, ambiguous and could just as easily support a traditional reading, as much as a critical or more skeptical one.
One obvious example is that in the Exodus narrative "no one can see God" there are actually multiple figures identified with and as "YHVH" including the Malach YHVH (Angel/Messenger of Lord/God) who also bears God's name. Mike had a conversation with an Orthodox Jew and mention Rabbinical Judaism, you can even find late-rabbinic traditions identifying this figure, known as Metatron with the lesser YHVH, who can be seen, and therefore is able to reveal YHVH himself who cannot be seen. So it could easily have one of them specifically in mind.
John of course also has one person in mind who can't be seen (John 1:18;6:46) namely the Father, but clearly not the Son, who are also both known as YHVH (Lord/God).
Ultimately, Mike only briefly passed over his belief that a divine revelation/scripture cannot have even 'a little mistake' or 'honest mistake' but without giving an account as to why? An explanation that would factor in a human aspect or showing an understanding of how containing any human dynamic would substantially effect the production and editing process. The human dimension of the Scripture would have to include human flaw, but also be conjoint at the hip with God's divine will and working sovereignty in the production of such literature.
Any account defending any form of 'inerrancy' must show that one is possible, and even plausible given the condition of humanity, human editors, writers and producers. But even if the Bible is not inerrant, it still wouldn't follow that it isn't infallible and inspired, in it's intended purpose for the only question would remain is how God accomplishes his inspiration without errancy, which as you can imagine, theologians have over half a dozen or so seemingly plausible models, elaborating on such thesis. So that isn't going to phase them.
But even if the Bible wasn't inerrant, inspired or infallible, that wouldn't negate the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the only explicit pillar of the faith identified in the Pauline corpus as elementary and fundamental to Christian life and belief, nor would it undermine the historical reality of Jesus or belief in Theism.
Ultimately the main problem with this argument is that it is unclear how if the Bible contains contradictions, that Christianity is in peril, or that even most conservative apologists would flinch.
The Bible doesn't appear to have any verse implying it's own total and complete logical consistency or it's own purported freedom from error or alleged rational coherence, it doesn't even suggest the most trivial mundane passages would match such an imposed or projected standard. The authors of the Bible were not Greco/Roman philosophers or logicians concerned with metaphysics or the nature of reality and logic, but were interesting in articulating the expressed dynamic of how in their primitive understanding the human relates to the divine will, and how the structure of value relates to us in governing behavior, relationships and ideals like faith, love and hope. That of course is also an understanding of divine inspiration of the Bible.
SCIENCE OF GOD
This section consists primarily of objections to I.D. and the defense of evolution. But it is fundamentally not clear why this is important or even relevant. I will even grant that I.D. is not true and evolution is true, God could still exist. More importantly, the Christian deity itself could still exist, even presuming Mike's conclusions are fully sound.
I'm not seeing how this plays a significant role in Mike's own de-conversion process. Excluding mainly conservative sections of American Christianity, evolution doesn't appear to infringe upon believing Christians. Likewise, while I.D. played a role in American politics, the vast majority of the world's Christians, don't object. There are no court-cases over such a phenomena anywhere outside U.S.A, since both trials originally stem out of complex political situations influenced and contrived within the conservative Bible-Belt.
Therefore this section I would render non-exhaustive or simply: incomplete. I think it fails to address the best reasons for belief in Theism (and I mean any Theism not merely Christian Theism). It also doesn't address the more common mainstream arguments for God's existence, passed down to us by primarily the Judeo-Christian-Islamic philosophical tradition. I personally contend or have concluded the mainstream arguments are not compellingly persuasive, but the 'best' versions or forms of those arguments need to be deeply contemplated.
Any serious thinker will find it difficult to just 'dismiss' anything outright, without a careful in-depth analysis and they won't just "cling" or "leech" to the first positive case made in advance of an argument for theism or merely emotionally latch onto a case made against an argument (for theism), without serious thought. I've often found any "opinion" or "narrative" that happens to conform with a bias we have a tendency to jump and leap at in agreement with, consume devoutly if you will, but most-often without serious study. And by serious study I don't mean: "hours" or even "days", I mean weeks, months and years of reflection.
In conclusion on this section, I think it would be better to infer only agnosticism, over that of atheism or atheist-agnosticism, not that i'm requesting Mike change his view, I'm just logically drawing out these neutral observations don't determine theism one way or another.
