Jerry Coyne Criticizes A.C. Grayling’s Handling of God Arguments, But Coyne Gets It Wrong Himself

June 28, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Jerry Coyne is a Harvard-educated, brilliant professor of biology who is an expert on biological evolution. His book, Why Evolution Is True, is a "must-read" for anyone interested in, well, why evolution is true.He also likes to write about topics outside of his area of expertise, including the philosophy of religion. As I've explained before, non-experts have the right to write about topics outside their area of expertise, but they owe it to themselves and their readers to make sure they k … [Read more...]

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Debate: The External Evidence for Jesus – Part 1

June 21, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Joe Hinman's first argument for the existence of Jesus is based on references to Jesus in the Talmud: We know Jesus was in the Talmud and that is a fact admitted by Rabbis.  Some references use his name (Yeshua) some use code words such as "such a one" or "Panthera".  The reason codes are used, is that the commentators censored the works and removed overt reverences [sic] to Jesus (although they missed some) to prevent Christians from inflicting persecution.  We have many of the out takes in va … [Read more...]

Filed Under: apologetics, Bible, books of interest, Christianity, debates, historicity of Jesus, miracles, religion, resurrection, skepticism Tagged With: , , , , , , Leave a Comment

The Debate about Jesus has Begun

June 20, 2016 by Leave a Comment

The debate between me and Joe Hinman about the existence of Jesus has begun.We are focusing on just the external (non-biblical) evidence.Joe has published his positive case for the claim that:...the external (not in Bible) evidence is strong enough to warrant belief in Jesus' historicity.Here is a link to Joe's initial post that summarizes his positive case:http://christiancadre.blogspot.hr/2016/06/debate-bradly-bowen-vs-joseph-hinman.htmlJoe has divided his case into … [Read more...]

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What is Christianity? Part 16

June 19, 2016 by Leave a Comment

In his book Naming the Elephant (hereafter: NTE), the Christian apologist James Sire raises various objections against his previous analysis of the concept of a “worldview” that he had presented in his earlier book The Universe Next Door (hereafter: TUND).I have reviewed three of Sire’s objections to his earlier cognitivist analysis of the concept of a “worldview” and argued that those objections were unsuccessful (see previous posts 10, 11, 12, and 13).In post 15, I argued that Sire's be … [Read more...]

Filed Under: apologetics, Bible, books of interest, Christianity, ethics, historicity of Jesus, logic, meaning of life, miracles, philosophy, philosophy of religion, religion, resurrection, skepticism, society & culture, theism Tagged With: , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

What Does “Supernatural” Mean? Part 2

June 6, 2016 by Leave a Comment

====================== Keith Augustine Perhaps in lieu of starting from scratch on this issue, readers might want to consider what others have already said on this issue.  ...======================I plan to take Keith Augustine's advice, just not this week.  Maybe next week, or maybe next month.  See his comments on the first post in this series, where he provides various links to web articles on this subject (I have added copies of Augustine's comments at the end of this current … [Read more...]

Filed Under: agnosticism, apologetics, atheism & naturalism, Bible, Christianity, logic, philosophy, philosophy of religion, religion, religion and science, resurrection, skepticism, theism Leave a Comment

Does God Exist? Part 3

June 1, 2016 by Leave a Comment

I'm still working on development of an analysis of the question "Does God exist?" that would help to organize systematic investigations of the question.In the Part 1 post in this series I suggested an analysis in terms of logical possibility, logical necessity, certainty, and probability (click on image below for a clearer view of the diagram):        In that same post I suggested another possible way to analyze … [Read more...]

Filed Under: apologetics, arguments for atheism, arguments for theism, atheism & naturalism, Christianity, creationism, intelligent design, logic, miracles, philosophers, philosophy, philosophy of religion, religion, religion and science, science, skepticism, theism Leave a Comment

Adamson’s Cru[de] Arguments for God – Part 7

May 29, 2016 by Leave a Comment

There are more pathetic arguments given by Marilyn Adamson in the section of her web article that she characterizes as her first reason (out of six) for believing that God exists: The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it today.  After her crappy argument based on the size of the Earth and it's distance from the Sun, she gives another crappy argument based on the properties of water:Water...colorless, odorless and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: apologetics, arguments for theism, atheism & naturalism, Christianity, cosmology, creationism, design argument, fine-tuning argument, intelligent design, logic, miracles, philosophy, philosophy of religion, religion, religion and science, science, skepticism, theism Leave a Comment

Adamson’s Cru[de] Arguments for God – Part 6

May 29, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Cosmic pluralism, the plurality of worlds, or simply pluralism, describes the philosophical belief in numerous “worlds” in addition to Earth (possibly an infinite number), which may harbour extraterrestrial life.   (from Wikipedia article “Cosmic Pluralism“)In my criticism of Adamson’s initial argument for the existence of God, I pointed out that cosmic pluralism is an idea that has been around since the beginning of Western philosophy about 2,500 years ago (the pre-socratic philosopher Anax … [Read more...]

Filed Under: apologetics, arguments for theism, atheism & naturalism, Christianity, cosmology, creationism, design argument, evolution, fine-tuning argument, intelligent design, logic, philosophers, philosophy, philosophy of religion, religion, religion and science, science, skepticism, society & culture, theism Leave a Comment