POST PUBLISHED INJuly, 2009
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  • The Little Engine that Could meets Methodological Naturalism

    July 31st, 200912:37 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    The tale of The Little Engine that Could remains a perennial classic of early children's literature, and understandably so. The story (which we all know, so why am I bothering to repeat it?) involves a little blue engine commissioned with the task of pulling a large train over a very large hill. Initially success appears impossible as the little en...

  • Abasing atheists and crazy Christians

    July 30th, 200904:42 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    In a recent blog post right here in Food for the Soul a fellow blogger described a radio segment where a caller dared to explain the diversity of languages in terms of the confounding of tongues at the Tower of Babel. This received short-shrift from the host who then lapsed into snickers, mockery, and contempt. This response strikes the blogger as ...

  • Is it better to affirm a truth for the wrong reasons than to deny it for the right ones?

    July 29th, 200908:50 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    An acquaintance of mine, Stephen M. Wagner, sent me the following question: "is it better to believe something true through indoctrination and rhetoric or to believe something false through reflection and argument?" While it is a great question, let me put it in my own words, in part because I want to make it my own, and in part because I'm uncomf...

  • Slippery slopes are not the point

    July 28th, 200911:15 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I actually have a day job but I cannot resist a quick response here. A few readers think that I am offering a slippery slope argument (as I interpret them anyway). In other words, if we take the view that morality is subjective, then anything goes. So gaga writes: "I see that you keep putting up the same view that since there is no ultimate objecti...

  • Subjective views of morality and the burden of proof

    July 28th, 200902:06 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Most atheists recognize that the existence of objective moral facts tells against atheism, and so they reject objective moral facts. On this view there is no objective moral fact about the woman who killed and ate part of her three week old baby. Thus the only moral facts are those relative to the judgments of individuals. Most of us disapprove of ...

  • Atheism and the meaningless life

    July 27th, 200911:54 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Twenty ago Air Supply sang about "Making love out of nothing at all." A challenging task no doubt. But it ain't nothing compared to making meaning out of nothing at all. And that is the challenge faced by the atheist who denies that there is any objective meaning. (There is another kind of atheist but I haven't heard a peep from that kind in this b...

  • Disproving the existence of Zeus (Round 1)

    July 24th, 200911:41 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    My fan club of skeptics was not happy with my last post in which I explained the rational basis on which a Christian (or anybody else) can recognize the existence of one particular deity (e.g. Yahweh) whilst not being required to concede the existence of another (e.g. Zeus). Thus, recognizing the existence of one particular god does not commit a pe...

  • Yahweh vs. Zeus Part 2: The Burden of Proof

    July 23rd, 200908:06 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Billy believes pixies live in pine trees. Billy can believe that if he wants to I guess, but it does prompt a question: if you are going to believe that pixies live in the pines, why not affirm that pixies also live in the firs and aspens? And what about sprites living in the rocks and rivers? In short, Billy's belief in pixies living in the pines ...

  • When is it rational to believe somebody's testimony?

    July 22nd, 200910:13 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I have argued that it is rational to accept the principle of credulity. This is the principle that, all things being equal, it is rational to accept the testimony of others. AnAtheist.Net would agree with this in some circumstances but not others: "let's use your example of the stranger giving directions. If said stranger tells me to go down the ...

  • Yahweh vs. Zeus Part 1: Setting Up a Research Program

    July 22nd, 200912:01 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Apparently a few of my fine dialogue partners from the atheist camp have a recurring fascination with Zeus. In particular they are interested in why I, as a Christian, accept the existence of the triune deity of Christian faith but not a panoply of other gods including the ancient Greek pantheon. The problem seems to be one of slippery slope. How ...

  • Atheism as a fad and a worldview

    July 21st, 200912:21 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Atheism provides the first step in a worldview, namely the worldview known as "naturalism". Naturalism of one or another sort has been around since at least the ancient Greeks. And since the ancient Greeks there have been some who have sought to build a comprehensive naturalistic worldview. Fastforward to the mid-twentieth century and a whole new ...

  • When is a belief rational?

    July 20th, 200911:19 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Skeptics of Christianity (e.g. atheists, agnostics) often assume that there is something epistemically sub-par about Christian belief. In many cases the thought is that Christian belief is somehow unjustified or irrational. Indeed, the more uncharitable and undisciplined will even take to calling Christians such incendiary epithets as "insane"...

  • Scattered responses to my atheistic readership

    July 20th, 200910:40 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Over the years I have found it frustrating that so many atheists reject a very narrow and often distorted conception of Christianity without realizing how much more complex this religious tradition is. And so in my last post I made a modest plea that they simply begin to recognize this complexity by citing three key examples. By doing this the...

  • A note to atheists before they attempt to refute Christianity

    July 18th, 200911:35 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I have taken my share of black eyes in this blog by daring to tell atheists what they (ought to) believe. Who am I, a Christian theist, to inform an atheist what their beliefs are (or ought to be)? While I may not agree entirely (I still hold doggedly that atheism entails a knowledge or belief claim that God does not exist), I s...

  • Can the atheist prove that God does not exist?

    July 17th, 200911:22 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    One of my skeptical readers, EnoNomi, takes issue with my claim that atheists and agnostics shoulder an evidential burden to defend their belief just as much as the theist does. This is what EnoNomi writes: "It's not up to the Atheist or the Agnostic to prove anything because you can't prove a negative. I can no more prove that your god doesn't ex...

  • If you believe in God, should you believe in Santa Claus too?

    July 16th, 200910:53 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Well I must say, I had a great time reading the comments, critiques and insults that came in after my last post with its modest attempt to define "atheism". In particular, many self-described atheists took umbrage to my claim that atheism is denial of the proposition that God exists. (Apparently my smarmy attitude was also ripe for verbal assault.)...

  • What is atheism? A note to my atheist friends

    July 14th, 200912:56 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I must say that as a general rule I like the atheists I meet. Oh sure, there is the odd mean fundamentalist atheist out there, just like in every other belief system. But most atheists I talk with are intelligent and thoughtful, if at times overly defensive. As a result, atheists generally are great company at a coffee shop, where a heady con...

  • Is how we live more important than what we believe?

    July 12th, 200907:54 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I am currently reading an infuriating book: With or Without God by Gretta Vosper. Why it is infuriating is a topic for another blog post, Here I simply want to consider the subtitle: "Why the way we live is more important than what we believe." I have asked a couple friends to comment on the subtitle and both responded as I expected: they rejected...

  • When not to argue with an atheist

    July 03rd, 200905:06 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I have had many great conversations with kind, thoughtful atheists who were passionate about the truth and loved nothing more than to engage in a good dialogue. So far as I could see, they were interested in faith but had some serious intellectual hangups. We shared a mutual respect and learned from one another. Then there are those other atheists...

  • Is atheism ever morally justified?

    July 02nd, 200911:50 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    "Tell me about the god you don't believe in because I probably don't believe in him either," There is a lot of truth in this old quip. Whenever someone identifies him or herself as an atheist we should always take the time to ask for a definition of the god this person does not believe in. It may just be that we don't believe in this god either. ...
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An exploration of faith, knowledge, reason and doubt (with the occasional trite pop culture reference thrown in for good measure).