POST PUBLISHED INAugust, 2009
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  • Hair spray, DNA, and the Design Inference

    August 31st, 200908:55 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Lucy the environmentalist is getting ready for the spotted owl rally while her friend Charlene chews gum and listens to ELO on the record player. Just as Lucy pulls out the Adorn hairspray in order to finish off her bouffant hairstyle, Charlene grabs the bottle away. "You can't use this you idiot!" "Why not?" asks Lucy, rather shocked at the insul...

  • In Search of a Design Filter

    August 28th, 200910:11 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    My last post is not actually about William Paley, the design argument, or intelligent design. Rather, it is about the changing of intellectual fashion, and the subtle bullying that occurs when some refuse to accept the change.  Just look at the level of vitriol directed against those who dare to defend the design argument (calling them "IDiot...

  • Wearing the Unfashionable William Paley

    August 27th, 200904:25 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I'll come out and admit it. I've never been much for changing cultural fashions. It took me until the 80s to get interested in disco, and I'm just now starting to get into grunge. Perhaps there is a bit of a rebel in me, but it is just as the wave of fashion moves on that I tend to get interested. I thought of this as I read gaga's rather disappoi...

  • Bill Maher's Alan Smithee Film

    August 25th, 200910:09 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    An Alan Smithee film is one in which the director adopts the pseudonym "Alan Smithee" because he/she is so dissatisfied with the final product. There is one thing worse than coming to recognize that you have made an Alan Smithee worthy film, and that is failing to recognize that you did. I thought of that as I recently watched director Larry Charl...

  • Am I a Christian due to historical accident?

    August 24th, 200908:43 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    The charge is a common one. You're a Christian because you were born and raised in North America. If you had been born in India you'd probably be a Hindu. If you had been born in a certain part of Africa, you'd probably be an animist. The conclusion is given by one of my readers, AnAtheist.Net, who charges: "You arbitrarily prefer a belief that is...

  • Yahweh vs. Zeus Part 3: The Battle Continues

    August 24th, 200912:35 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    It is a common complaint of atheists, humanists, agnostics, skeptics, and various other grumblers against theistic belief, that there is something arbitrary about such belief. ConverseAtheist has been hammering on this point for awhile now, focusing in particular on Zeus. That is, if I believe in the Christian God, why not believe in the Greek God ...

  • Is it (ever) rational to believe that the earth is flat?

    August 22nd, 200906:54 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    To begin with, let me get you up to speed on the conversation. In the thread to my last post I wrote this: Consider Billy, raised on a compound of the Flat Earth Society in the Nevada countryside and taught to believe that the earth is flat (with all the standard lines of "evidence"). Is ten year old Billy justified in his belief? Of course. Will...

  • Is evil a disproof for Christianity?

    August 20th, 200910:19 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    What would you say if an atheist asked you to tell him how best to shake your Christian faith? It would be a strange question wouldn't it? Rather like Caleb Bradham (founder of Pepsi) calling up Asa Griggs Candler (one time head of Coca-Cola) and asking for the secret formula to Coke. And yet, that is what I was asked by one of my readers, Converse...

  • Science, knowledge, and the Little Engine that Could

    August 19th, 200912:51 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...

  • What are those wackos teaching their kids?

    August 17th, 200901:07 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Many skeptics today assume that the religious believer who teaches his religion to his children is guilty of a form of cognitive child abuse. For a great example of this reasoning consider the opening of the essay "Viruses of the Mind" where Richard Dawkins describes how he managed to preempt the mental abuse of his own daughter: "I have just disco...

  • An atheist, a scientist, and a God who answers prayer

    August 13th, 200908:05 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Is there a God who answers prayer? A number of my vocal critics find this an implausible, absurd and perhaps even offensive supposition. The reasons why are more than one blog post can cover, but we can at least make a start here. One problem is that the claim "there is a God who answers prayer" seems to be falsified by the data. How so? Beca...

  • Why I believe Yahweh is God: A brief note to an atheist

    August 12th, 200901:39 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    One of my readers, "ConverseAtheist", has asked for the grounds I have for believing that it is Yahweh, rather than any one of the other candidates for deity -- Zeus, Allah, Ahura Mazda, Thor -- that is the true God, and thus the one correctly described as the "most perfect being". I was going to get there through an extended, subtle, and deliciou...

  • Belief in Yahweh in a world of other gods

    August 10th, 200910:22 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    [Note to the reader: this is the third installment in an ongoing conversation on the rationality of belief in God. We now join this conversation, which is unfolding at a bohemian coffee shop, in progress.] The college guy was looking impatient. "Can you get to the question at hand? Good gosh man, people are beginning to fall asleep!" "Yes, y...

  • Yahweh as most perfect being and the burden of belief

    August 10th, 200912:35 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Randal took a slurp of his coffee, sat back in his chair, and continued: "So I am trying to address the question, "Why believe Yahweh is the most perfect being?" As we have seen, there are two possible defeaters to this claim. Before I outline those defeaters and seek to address them, I want to say a few words about evidential burden...

  • Why believe Yahweh is the most perfect being?

    August 07th, 200910:09 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Randal is reading a Calvin and Hobbes book in the middle of a bustling, bohemian coffee shop. Suddenly ConverseAtheist walks up and taps him impatiently on the shoulder. Randal looks up and ConverseAtheist begins to speak: "You requested my patience regarding your case against Zeus... that was a couple of weeks ago." Randal nods as ConveseAtheist ...

  • Does the Trinity make sense (and does it matter)?

    August 05th, 200902:25 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    The doctrine of the Trinity -- the doctrine that the one God is three distinct and equally divine persons -- stands at the center of Christian confession. Indeed, the doctrine has long been confessed as the foundation stone of Christian orthodoxy, and ideally also the heartbeat of Christian piety. But even so, it also represents what appears to be ...

  • Why all reason is faithful (even if not all faith is reasonable)

    August 03rd, 200910:37 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I want to pick up here where my post "When is a belief rational?" left off. There I argued (following A. Kenny) that reason is found in a proper balance between credulity (willingness to believe) and skepticism (unwillingness to believe). Interestingly, this definition has important consequences for the way we view the faith/reason relationship. T...
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About this blog
An exploration of faith, knowledge, reason and doubt (with the occasional trite pop culture reference thrown in for good measure).