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TechnoratiPOST PUBLISHED INJune, 2010
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Methodological Naturalism and the Case of the Waving Statue
June 30th, 201010:19 AM ETI have noted the case of Michael Shermer twice now and I thought I would return to it and provide the full transcript. This is very instructive because Shermer, a well known skeptic and agnostic/atheist, shows just how recalcitrant so-called open-minded skeptics can be to evidence. The excerpt comes from a program on miracles which was broadcast a... -
Atheist books in the seminary classroom
June 30th, 201009:22 AM ETNext January I teach my apologetics class again. In the past I have sought to include one atheist book on my list of required readings, and therein lies the problem. Last time the book was David Mills, Atheist Universe, but that book was so poorly written and argued that it did not challenge the students at all. So I'm looking for another... -
And now for something completely different: Debriefing Toy Story 3
June 28th, 201011:28 PM ETChoosing your favorite Pixar film is like choosing your favorite Mustang. (GT 350? Boss 302? Mach 1?) In other words, next to impossible. Wall-E may be the most eloquently philosophical and Ratatouille the most artful. But Toy Story 3 has to be the most pure fun. I just arrived back from the theatres and I cannot believe how much is packed in... -
The Tentative Apologist Reader on Faith and Reason
June 28th, 201005:21 PM ETSorceror: "Rauser, please link to specific articles where you make the case for "the Bible is the Word of God" being 'properly basic' or the equivalent." Glad to oblige. Here are most of the relevant posts where I provide a particular moderate foundationalist theory of epistemology and then apply it to religious beliefs. I would r... -
The burden of the critic
June 28th, 201003:16 PM ETI feel as overwhelmed at the moment as Justin Bieber staring at his in-box. If I try to respond to every critic then this whole dialogue is going to grind to a halt because there just ain't enough hours in the day. So instead of engaging with any specific critic at this point I'll simply provide a concise summary and partial restatement of my epis... -
On Babinski's Evidential Burden: Lessons from the Tentative Atheist
June 26th, 201010:48 PM ETHey, I'm on my way out for the evening but before I go I thought I would do a Thomas the Tank Engine and get some of you troublesome trucks back on the right track. Here's the problem. Now I'm being asked: "Gimme gimme gimme some evidence to believe the bible is divine revelation!" That's a nice request for another day, but alas it diverts us fro... -
Is the Bible "merely" a product of its times?
June 26th, 201012:14 PM ETSometimes running a blog is like working on an assembly line stamping widgets. If you go for a bathroom break the line doesn't stop and the widgets pile up and then you never catch up. Unless your blog is your life, that invariably happens. I have a bunch of widgets (i.e. comments) piled up in my absence over the last 36 hours (a long bathroom bre... -
Van Gogh and God, or How to redeem Babinski
June 23rd, 201007:38 PM ETIn this post we're going to focus on a comment from Silver Bullet in which SB attempts to redeem Ed Babinski's argument. So without further adieu, here's Silver Bullet: If I produced a series of paintings and was able to trace them with certainty to Paris from the 1880's, and I wanted to sell them to you as original Van Goghs though they were all ... -
What would we expect God's Word to look like?
June 22nd, 201001:34 PM ETIn response to my "Babinski Bible" post, I received a number of good responses. AnAtheist.net responds: "The problem is deciding what is of divine origin if everything looks like it is of human origin (ie, culturally and historically situated)." Fine, but you pose an epistemological question which is different from the concerns of the book ... -
The Bible Babinski thinks God should have written: On “The Christian Delusion” (Part 9)
June 21st, 201007:44 PM ETEdward T. Babinski, "The Cosmology of the Bible," 109-47. Yes, we are now into Part 9 of our ongoing series reviewing John Loftus's edited volume The Christian Delusion. I survived the first part, "Why Faith Fails," with my faith still intact. Now it's time for part 2, "Why the Bible is not God's word." Here we begin with Edward Babinski's essay "... -
Whatever became of The Tentative Apologist?
June 21st, 201005:50 PM ETSaturday morning I posted as per the usual and not soon after got a snippity comment from EssEff which didn't relate to the topic of the post. And then ... everything changed! Suddenly people couldn't post responses anymore. I received a couple emails from people who tried to post and were unable to. I tried to post and likewise failed. The... -
Why the Outsider Test had better go big or go home
June 19th, 201009:58 AM ETI have been arguing that John Loftus's outsider test for faith (the claim that people who adhere to a religion are obliged to take a critical test in which they view their faith as an outsider, and if they do they will *see* that it is false) has some pretty serious weaknesses. Here is a recap as well as a note on why John's continued attempt ... -
Two Party System Outsider Test for Politics
June 18th, 201001:11 PM ETUriah was born and raised in Provo, Utah. Good Mormon stock. Salt of the earth. As conservative as the day is long (on summer solstice anyway). Utah, as you know, is a red state. As red as they come. Redder than Rudoph's nose. Sig was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. Secular, highly educated. Only uses kosher sea salt on his vegetarian tofu f... -
The Outsider Test for Politics Comes Alive! (just like Peter Frampton)
June 18th, 201011:40 AM ETYesterday I presented my Outsider Test for Politics and I am not surprised to have met resistance. To start things off, John Loftus treated it like a big joke! He says "You are just way too funny, I like it." Yeah, they laughed at Columbus too buddy. Next, Loftus says "The anarchist is making a political affirmative claim. He's claiming the best p... -
The Outsider Test for Politics
June 17th, 201009:57 AM ETAs y'all know, I have been having the ole' back and forth with John Loftus over his "Outsider Test for Faith". According to this test, people of faith need to approach their faith as an outsider,that is, as if they were not an adherent of it. If they do so, John Loftus confidently asserts, then they will necessarily come to agree with him that all ... -
The Tentative Apologist receives a stern reprimand
June 17th, 201012:30 AM ETEarly in the ongoing saga of my reviews of The Christian Delusion (that is, way back a week ago) I tackled the essay "The Cultures of Christianity" by David Eller. (See here). Dr. Eller has now responded. (See here). And, well, his response feels a bit like getting shushed by an aristocrat during a horse race at the Kentucky downs: in other wo... -
Outsider test for faith or truth seeker for life
June 16th, 201009:33 AM ETI've been having a go around, or a brouhaha, or maybe a hubbub, with atheist John Loftus concerning his "outsider test of faith" in his book The Christian Delusion. This is a challenge he poses to people who are committed to a religion and it seems to function a bit like a hazing ritual to get admitted to the frat house. It has bothered ... -
Faith or skepticism? On "The Christian Delusion" (Part 8)
June 15th, 201012:29 AM ETJohn Loftus, "The Outsider Test of Faith Revisited," 81-106. John Loftus is well known for his "outsider test for faith" which is featured in his book Why I Became an Atheist. It is a challenge to people who hold to religious faith of whatever sort to approach their beliefs with the objective, critical distance of an outsider. Loftus wants be... -
“The Unanimous Consensus of Rational People”: On “The Christian Delusion” (Part 7)
June 13th, 201008:58 PM ETJason Long, "The Malleability of the Human Mind," 65-80. All right my clear thinking little skeptics, gather close now. Today we are going to hear about those crazy religious people who are indoctrinated. You need to be careful of them my darling little skeptics! "Tell us more teacher!" Oh yes little Johnny, I will. As our trusted authority... -
Everyone’s irrational; therefore Christians are irrational (On “The Christian Delusion” Part 6)
June 11th, 201011:47 AM ETWe now turn to the second chapter of The Christian Delusion, Valerie Tarico's "Christian Belief through the lens of cognitive science," 47-64. The first thing to note is that Tarico is not addressing the question of whether Christianity is true. Rather, what she intends to address is whether it is rational or justified to believe: "Why is Christi... -
Those Cunning Christians: On "The Christian Delusion" (Part 5)
June 10th, 201009:49 AM ETThe first section of The Christian Delusion is ominously titled "Why Faith Fails." One might expect then to find in the first essay of this section an argument illustrating to the reader why faith fails. But alas, the argument in David Eller's essay "The Cultures of Christianity" seems to have gone missing.Let's begin with the first couple sentence... -
Christian flip-flopping? On "The Christian Delusion" (Part 4)
June 06th, 201011:03 AM ETReading John Loftus's introduction to The Christian Delusion I felt a bit like a democrat hiding out at the Republican National Convention. There I sit, wedged in between a Texas cowboy and a suburban soccer mom. But while the crowd around me is whooping it up in a frenzy, I find myself taking issue with the speakers: "That's just rhetoric." I grum... -
Objective aesthetic judgments and naturalism
June 04th, 201001:54 PM ETI am in the midst of reviewing John Loftus's book The Christian Delusion but I am also permitted the occasional excursus. After all, it's my blog and who are you to tell me what to do? (Sorry, that's a bit too aggressive. It's been a busy morning and I'm a bit on edge.) Anyway, I digress. In the last thread the question of aesthetics has aris... -
Chameleon Christianity? On "The Christian Delusion" (Part 3)
June 02nd, 201011:42 AM ETBack in 84' George Michael and "Culture Club" were a guilty pleasure. If nobody was around, you could crank their number 1 hit "Karma Chameleon". But if you saw your friends coming you only had seconds to swap the cassette with Van Halen or face the ignominy of being caught listening to the androgynous ambassador of British New Wave. Fast-for... -
Do atheists care about truth? On "The Christian Delusion" (Part 2)
June 01st, 201011:32 AM ETWhen I enter an important art museum like the Tate Modern or National Gallery I don't aim to be out in twenty minutes. Rather, I linger over the displays, biding my time as I seek to extract every ounce of juice from the rinds of canvas and marble. (Ugh, that's a rather tortured idiom, is it not?) Anyway, I carry the same attitude with important b...
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An exploration of faith, knowledge, reason and doubt (with the occasional trite pop culture reference thrown in for good measure).
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