Bad or Absent Fathers as a Strong Indicator of Atheism

Last updated on: May 20, 2018 at 6:47 pm By Dave Armstrong

This factor was present in the lives of famous atheists Freud, Marx, Feuerbach, Baron d’Holbach, Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Schopenhauer, Hobbes, Samuel Butler, H. G. Wells, Carlyle, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, and Albert EllisFrom former atheist Paul Vitz’s article: “The Psychology of Atheism”: The Psychology of Atheism: The Theory of Defective Father Since there is need for deeper understanding of atheism and since I don’t know of any theoretical framework-except the Oedipal one – I am forced to sketch out a model... Read more

Seidensticker: Christians R Intellectually Dishonest Idiots

Last updated on: May 12, 2018 at 4:43 pm By Dave Armstrong

He Also Projects Onto Me These Bigoted Ideas, as if I Hold the Same About Atheists Bob Seidensticker runs the large and popular atheist blog, Cross Examined. We recently had a lengthy dialogue about worship of God and several other rabbit trails. His words will be in blue. *** This exchange was from our recent dialogue: Your comments in this dialogue were posted under a very extensive article on hell, in which I dialogued with a very thoughtful and skeptical... Read more

Exchange: Atheists & Beating “Christianity” Straw Men

Last updated on: May 12, 2018 at 12:38 pm By Dave Armstrong

Do Atheists Habitually Equate Fringe Portions of Christianity with the Whole, & with Biblical Teaching? This was an exchange with atheist Michael Neville on my blog. His words will be in blue. *** [Michael cited my words in a recent debate] “. . . and infinitely smarter than Christians, whose beliefs they invariably distort and turn into straw men, which they then proceed to quixotically demolish. That’s as big of a mystery as anything in the universe.” One of the... Read more

Atheist: What Evidence is Required to Change Religions?

Last updated on: May 11, 2018 at 7:26 pm By Dave Armstrong

What can I do after answering a question repeatedly in many ways, yet am told over and over that I haven’t answered at all? The words of MR, an atheist, will be in blue. Words of fellow atheist Bob Seidensticker will be in green. MR was commenting on a discussion thread that became my paper, “Why Do We Worship God? Dialogue with an Atheist.” *** [from the “Worship” dialogue] Bob Seidensticker: How much evidence would you need to convert to some... Read more

Why Do We Worship God? Dialogue with an Atheist

Last updated on: May 11, 2018 at 11:59 pm By Dave Armstrong

Bob Seidensticker is an atheist and webmaster of the popular Patheos blog, Cross Examined. His words will be in blue. The initial discussions took place in a combox for another paper. They are in a very different form there because here I edited (in my usual fashion) to make it have a back-and-forth “Platonic / Socratic dialogue” flow and to stay as much as possible on the topic of worship of God. ***** I’m baffled by the worship thing. Why... Read more

Why “Bible Difficulties” Should be Fully Expected

Last updated on: May 10, 2018 at 12:07 pm By Dave Armstrong

An atheist mentioned Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties and commented, “How could God’s word have ‘difficulties?’ What on earth was difficult about God’s revelation to mankind [?]. I mean, he’s God, right?” ***** This is shallow, unreflective thinking. I can think of a number of sound, logical reasons why such a book would exist: 1. The Bible is a very lengthy, multi-faceted book by many authors, from long ago, with many literary genres (and in three languages), and cultural assumptions... Read more

Is God an Unjust Judge? Dialogue with an Atheist

Last updated on: May 10, 2018 at 11:35 am By Dave Armstrong

This occurred underneath my post, “Does God Ever Judge People by Sending Disease?” Raymond is some sort of non-theist or atheist. His words will be in blue. *** Is there going to be a Part Two to this post? You paint a particularly repulsive picture of God here. I have material about God’s love and mercy as well. Just because I wrote about judgment, doesn’t mean that that is all I and Christians believe about God. For example: “God’s ‘Valentine’ to... Read more

Dialogue with an Atheist on Miracles & First Premises

Last updated on: May 9, 2018 at 2:36 pm By Dave Armstrong

“DagoodS” is a former Christian with whom I have dialogued several times. Recently I met him. He did a presentation on evidences (or lack thereof, from his standpoint) for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I wrote an account of my opinion of the meeting: 16 Atheists / Agnostics & Me (At a Meeting). Since that time he has made some replies in the combox for the aforementioned post and in another (not always directed towards myself) for a related post from... Read more

Empiricism: Only Valid & Objective Knowledge? Two Atheists “Reply”

Last updated on: May 9, 2018 at 1:07 pm By Dave Armstrong

“ButILikeCaves” was hyper-insulting and asserted that all Christians are fundamentally dishonest. He was banned as a result, but before he was escorted to the door, he refused to defend his basic axioms. Here is that discussion, with his childish insults omitted, as much as possible, with his words in blue: ***** Mythology is cool, and fun to study, and can have some good lessons. You should never let it rule your life. I (like Tolkien and C. S. Lewis) contend... Read more

50 Atheists vs. Me and the 101 Topics Routine

Last updated on: May 8, 2018 at 2:28 pm By Dave Armstrong

Predictably, as I critiqued a few atheist deconversion stories, I was made the sole subject of now two threads on an atheist site (the first now has 270 comments in three days: with 54 atheists, and the second is up to 92 in the space of one day). 50 atheists and little ol’ me! I’m expected to answer all these people and simultaneously engage in that many discussions (and if I don’t, I’m an intellectual coward, or don’t have the... Read more

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