A Christian pastor wrote in at Friendly Atheist to ask for difficult questions his congregation could try to tackle in discussion groups. He wants his flock to avoid isolating themselves from challenges (and I bet he'd like them to be better prepared for evangelizing). I've had problems with the questions atheists pose to Christians (some of which seem rooted in the common misunderstandings I ran through on Friday. I've summarized and linked to my Why I Do Not Believe series, which … [Read more...]
Prep for a Case Study in Christian Thought
February 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment
When people read my "Testing the Truth-Telling Thing" post in my Chesterton series, the first question everyone asked was: Which ethical beliefs do you have that fit better into a Christian context? As luck would have it I recently gave a speech for my debating group that drew heavily on Christian ideas (even though I scrubbed them from the speech). The speech is up at the Huffington Post, and if you go check it out, I'll be back this afternoon to explain how most of the ideas I expressed … [Read more...]
The Purpose Paradox
January 6, 2011 By 8 Comments
My ability to recognize purposefulness is incredibly contingent on my ability to understand the natural world and to understand other minds. I have to have a decent theory of the limitations of natural processes to be able to recognize objects/processes that transcend them. Lukas's example of pulsars is apt. Until scientists realized that there could be stars that naturally emitted radio wave bursts at regular intervals, many of them reasonably wondered if they could be a signal from an … [Read more...]
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