Post tagged with apologetics

  • Al Mohler says the devil is in the details. Ironically enough, he’s right.

    September 22nd, 201104:26 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Imagine a defense attorney that is trying to defend his client's innocence against the charge of murder. To his initial delight the defense attorney comes across an eyewitness who is emphatic that the attorney's client did not commit the murder. The reason? The eyewitness says he saw another man commit the crime. Do you think the attorney would be ...

  • The End of Christianity? A Skeptical Review (Part 10)

    September 08th, 201108:41 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Chapter 9 of The End of Christianity brings us to Robert M. Price's essay "Explaining the Resurrection without Recourse to Miracle". In this chapter Price argues that "recourse to miracle is completely superfluous..." (219) as a means to explain the "resurrection data". To prove his point, Price dusts off three long forgotten theories that see...

  • The End of Christianity? A Skeptical Review (Part 9)

    September 05th, 201112:35 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    After a couple weeks hiatus I find myself picking up my review of The End of Christianity once again. Although I have published about fifteen posts in critique of The End of Christianity over the last couple months, I have not received a single response from the essayists. Well okay, there was one response: John W. Loftus summarily dismissed e...

  • The End of Christianity? A Skeptical Review (Part 4)

    August 11th, 201109:12 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    In this installment of our ongoing review of Loftus, ed., The End of Christianity we turn to an evaluation of chapter 3 which is an essay by John W. Loftus titled "Christianity is wildly improbable". The essay begins with John's characteristic Braveheart-styled bravado: "When it comes to Christianity, two thousand years are enough. It's time this...

  • The End of Christianity? A Skeptical Review (Part 3)

    August 10th, 201104:04 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Providentialist history arguments have long been part of the arsenal of some apologists. One popular argument of this type defends the conclusion that the Jews are God's chosen people based on the fact that they have survived the seemingly endless persecution of their people throughout history. (Here's what I picture the skeptic retorting: that's l...

  • The End of Christianity? A Skeptical Review (Part 2)

    August 09th, 201111:38 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    My last exchange with David Eller over his essay in The Christian Delusion was not pretty. Simply because I pointed out that he forgot to include an argument in his chapter he responded that I was "clearly unfamiliar with the abundant literature". That's a great line. In fact it is so good that I've appropriated it for my arsenal. So if ever anyone...

  • The End of Christianity? A Skeptical Review (Part 1)

    August 07th, 201102:54 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    John Loftus, ed. The End of Christianity. Prometheus, 2011. ISBN: 978-1-61614-413-5. The End of Christianity is the final installment in an atheistic triumvirate designed to decimate Christiainty. (Previous entries include Loftus, Why I Became an Atheist and Loftus, ed. The Christian Delusion.) This review is going to be long and messy. As pr...

  • Does a really old universe show that human beings are not important?

    July 05th, 201110:07 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Mark Twain thought so. In one of his finest rhetorical moments (in a career sparkling with them) he wrote: "Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of pa...

  • The problem of uncool Christianity

    April 12th, 201101:08 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Apologists are those who want to convert you to a particular view, whether it be Christianity, atheism, capitalism, democracy, or anything else. Very often the assumption is that the apologist should focus on reasoned arguments for one's view. And of course that is indeed a part of what they should be concerned with. But the field is broader. What ...

  • On the general skepticism about ancient miracle reports

    March 02nd, 201103:17 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Many highly educated ancient historians (by which I mean historians that study ancient history, not historians that are really old) believe that the historical evidence supports the conclusion that Jesus was resurrected. For example, they point to the strong evidence for the empty tomb, post resurrection appearances, and the beliefs of the earliest...
Page 1 of 3 PREVIOUS 1 2 3 NEXT
Advertisement
About this blog
An exploration of faith, knowledge, reason and doubt (with the occasional trite pop culture reference thrown in for good measure).