Rebuttal of Seidensticker’s Anti-Christian Science “History”

Last updated on: August 29, 2020 at 10:33 am By Dave Armstrong

For a completely warped, cynical, jaded, ignorant, one-sided alt-version of the history of early science, see anti-Christian atheist Bob Seidensticker’s post, “When Christianity Was in Charge, This Is What We Got” (8-10-18). In this disgraceful, outlandish piece, he wrote: When Christianity was in charge, the world was populated by mystical creatures, we had little besides superstition to explain the caprices of nature, and natural disasters were signs of God’s anger. Christianity’s goal isn’t to create the internet, GPS, airplanes, or... Read more

Reply to the “Deconversion Story” of a Pastor’s Wife

Last updated on: August 10, 2018 at 6:49 pm By Dave Armstrong

A “deconversion” is a sort of “anti-testimony” story of the odyssey from Christian faith to atheism or skepticism or agnosticism (the loss of faith in some sense). I have written papers analyzing many of these. Atheists, for their part, constantly run down Christianity and Christians. Surely they can’t object if we (especially apologist types such as myself) simply scrutinize reasons they themselves give as to why they rejected Christianity. For the life of me, I don’t see why that should... Read more

Hysterical Frenzy vs. Me on Atheist Seidensticker’s Blog

Last updated on: August 13, 2018 at 10:40 am By Dave Armstrong

I dared to ban atheist icon / sacred cow Bob Seidensticker, for reasons carefully explained in these two papers: Seidensticker: Christians R Intellectually Dishonest Idiots * Why I Blocked Anti-Theist Atheist Bob Seidensticker * That set off (utterly predictably) a “feeding frenzy” on his blog: a no-holds-barred / anything goes insult-fest against yours truly. I had hell to pay. One simply doesn’t criticize the big shot atheists online. As usual in such instances, I shall now merely document and expose... Read more

Documentary Theory of Biblical Authorship (JEPD): Dialogue

Last updated on: August 10, 2018 at 1:30 pm By Dave Armstrong

My dialogue opponent (on my blog) is a self-described “liberal” Catholic. His words will be in blue. * * * * *Then there is the whole sacrifice of Isaac scene. What is being portrayed in Genesis is not a God who issues eternal decrees conveying rational and consistent laws. Rather, we have a God who acts quite arbitrarily, and issues decrees that are temporal and specific to the individual. God cannot act arbitrarily. That is blasphemy. So you are either questioning God... Read more

Biblical Inspiration & Cultural Influences: Contradictory?

Last updated on: August 16, 2018 at 2:18 pm By Dave Armstrong

Elzbieta Kraszewski, who was raised Catholic, wrote in one of my comboxes (words in blue henceforth): The Bible is much more understandable (and actually more relevant) if we view it in light of the authors’ time and culture. Of course they didn’t denounce slavery because, like every known ancient civilization, slavery was a major part of their economy. Saying that God justified capturing, owning, and selling slaves was simply (and obviously) a man-made attempt to enshrine the right to own... Read more

Am I the Christian Equivalent of the “Angry Atheist”?

Last updated on: August 9, 2018 at 2:06 pm By Dave Armstrong

The following came from a critique from Grimlock: a frequent atheist contributor to my blog (I’ve engaged in several lengthy debates with him). He is objecting to my recent blog post, “Why I Blocked Anti-Theist Atheist Bob Seidensticker” (8-8-18), in its combox. It was similar to an earlier paper, called, “Seidensticker: Christians R Intellectually Dishonest Idiots (He Also Projects Onto Me These Bigoted Ideas, as if I Hold the Same About Atheists)” (5-12-18). Grimlock’s words will be in blue. My... Read more

Science: “only discipline that tells us new things about reality” [???]

Last updated on: August 9, 2018 at 12:57 pm By Dave Armstrong

Scientism or Near-Scientism as a Very Common Shortcoming of Atheist Epistemology This dialogue came about as a result of atheist “JustAnotherAtheist2” [“JAA2”] critiquing one sentence I wrote in response to another from well-known online atheist Bob Seidensticker: Bob: “Science is the only discipline that tells us new things about reality.” [link] Me: “Like many atheists, he takes the epistemologically naive and stunted view of scientism: that science is the only legitimate means of knowledge.” [link] For a helpful treatment of scientism, see the... Read more

Atheist Argument From Non-Belief (vs. Dr. Ted Drange)

Last updated on: August 8, 2018 at 12:15 pm By Dave Armstrong

Dr. Ted Drange is an atheist philosopher, renowned in atheist circles for his arguments against Christianity. Back around 2001, he started vigorously challenging me. At first I had no idea that he was a philosophy professor (which was a bit unfair, and should have been disclosed, but anyway . . .). This particular argument was much ballyhooed on Jeffrey Jay Lowder’s Secular Web. He wrote there about it, and several papers along these lines; also about Dr. Drange in particular:... Read more

Why I Blocked Anti-Theist Atheist Bob Seidensticker

Last updated on: August 8, 2018 at 12:59 pm By Dave Armstrong

His words will be in blue. I had already established beyond all doubt from his own words — three months ago — that Seidensticker (who runs the popular Cross Examined blog at Patheos) is one of the distressingly common condescending atheists, who thinks Christians are (on the whole or generalizing) dishonest, hateful, infantile, anti-evidential (“Christians might sidestep that whole evidence and argument thing”: 7-31-18), anti-scientific, anti-intellectual fools and simpletons, who worship a morally atrocious “god.” I discuss the phenomenon of... Read more

“Catholic Christian” Implies a Non-Catholic Ecclesiology?

Last updated on: August 7, 2018 at 1:02 pm By Dave Armstrong

Background: the claim was made in a previous discussion on the validity of the apostolate of Scott Hahn that the use of the descriptive phrase Catholic Christian is improper. I vigorously denied this, arguing that it is a matter of the English language and category distinctions, and a way to linguistically counter the common anti-Catholic assumption that Catholics call themselves Catholics rather than (if one word must be chosen) Christians because they are not Christians in the first place, and wish to deliberately dissociate themselves from that... Read more