The Warfare Is Mental

Why I Said Skeptical Theism Is For The Birds

April 19, 2012

Peter Hurford recently said it was “misleading” to say he’d recanted the POE without including his “new position.” I replied that I was confused because I linked directly to his new position. I also said I felt that he might be confused, implying that I don’t think he still thinks the POE works, but rather that skeptical theism (hereafter ST) undermines key theist tenets. This is even more confusing when considering that Peter used ST to defang his newly-formulated POE. Look, right here:

DBT02 Update: JT Eberhard Withdraws His Challenge

What would JT do? Well, suppress intelligent dissent just like the others who couldn’t hang. I don’t get it. Here we have a self-touted “freethinker” who feels the need to resort to censoring rational inquiry. I tried to leave a comment on JT’s blog, to no avail. So, I guess I’m banned.

“Free speech,” they cry at the top of their lungs any other day.

“Unless of course it comes from an intelligent dissenter,” reads the subtext.

Eh, oh well. I’m going to follow through on my end of the engagement anyways. Meaning, I’m going to publish a systematic dismantling of JT’s arguments just as I would have had he not scurried off with his tail between his legs. I guess in their world it’s only acceptable to be “confrontational” or “annoying” if you’re an atheist, eh?

DBT02: Call For Judges, Topic Suggestions

April 18, 2012

So JT Eberhard has agreed to an exchange. We are still working out the details of the exchange, but I’d like to go ahead and post everything we’ve exchanged in our emails so far, creating an absolutely transparent public record of all dialog (because it’s a good practice in general, but also to give a certain hater even less to hate on). It began with this post on JT’s blog, where he said he was looking for “someone to exchange emails with on the existence of God.” I shot him an email, and here was his first response:

Accepted (was hoping for you or Jayman). If we’re doing the existence of God, you wanna go first?

Holding JT’s Feet To The Fire

April 15, 2012

Today’s post is a reprint of a comment I left on a thread at JT Eberhard’s blog. You can find the source article here.

JT, I would like to hold your feet to the fire. I concur with Jayman’s analysis. It’s fairly obvious to me that you *ARE* simply reading what you want to hear into the article. On what evidence do I make my claim? Well, to begin, you’ve framed the issue entirely in the context of religious tension, and completely omitted Gauchat’s salient points about other contributing factors which might also explain the data:

DBT01: Closing Comments

April 14, 2012

Matt and Andrés both told their side of the DBT01 judging fiasco here, so now I guess I have to tell mine. First, I’d like to explain why I believe I effectively won the debate, despite officially forfeiting out of frustration. A few weeks ago, Peter Hurford dropped the following comment:

… it is not true that if God exists, removing any instance of suffering must make everyone net worse off. Thus, I hereby recant all the essays I wrote in which I argued this position. …the Problem of Evil, as traditionally conceived, fails. (source, bold orig.)

That says it all. A debate aims to show who created the more persuasive arguments. Regardless of my concession that needless suffering existed per Peter’s definition, I was ultimately arguing that the POE was impotent, and Peter ultimately agreed. Plain and simple, his recanting should carry more weight than my concession.

The Contradictory Failures Of Peter Hurford

April 13, 2012

This post is in direct response to Peter Hurford’s misleading essay, The Contradictory Failure of Prayer. My official position on prayer studies is that atheists who champion them as evidence for atheism are just as irrational as believers who champion them as evidence for theism.

As is typical of internet atheists, Mr. Hurford misleads his readers to believe that science is purely on his side, stating (bold mine) that “every time we look at the results, we notice that atheists recover from illness just as frequently as believers who pray.” I don’t know about you, but it really bothers me when people use “we” when they should use “I” instead [cf. Alonzo Fyfe and his litany of unsubstantiated “we” claims]. Peter’s use of “we” implies that his readers have reason to share his conclusions, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. When I look at the results, I notice a state of affairs quite different from the one Peter wants his readers to accept as reality.

A Reminder To The Willfully Ignorant

April 10, 2012

If you haven’t read it already, I highly suggest Neil Postman’s The End of Education. It isn’t about (a)theism per se—it’s actually about how the transcendent, unifying narratives of previous generations have been replaced by “gods” of consumerism, technology and economic utility—but Postman raises many points with direct import to (a)theist debate. For example,

…the Big Bang theory of modern astronomers is not so far from the story of the Beginning as found Genesis. The thought that a group of camel-riding Bedouins huddling around a fire in the desert night four thousand years ago might ponder the question of how the universe began and come up with a narrative that is similar to one accepted by MIT professors in the late twentieth century speaks of a continuity of human imagination that cannot fail to inspire. (p.112-113)

But of course, as most of the enlightened, rational atheists already know, there is no evidence for God. They may as well discard Postman’s candor entirely.

Atheism & Moral Naïveté

April 4, 2012

I recently expressed my belief that most atheists have a very naïve understanding of morality that goes something like, “saving lives = moral good.” A commenter asked me to explain my position, and that’s what today’s brief post is about.

cl, no offense, but I don’t think this is a common atheist ethic. I think this is a cornerstone of any common sense morality: that is to say, “this” being the principle that saving lives is good. If you hear a child crying out for help that is drowning, would you bother to save him? Would not saving him be immoral if one was totally aware of his presence/distress and capable of saving him?

My first response is that “common sense” has led us down the wrong path, countless times. “Common sense” told us the sun went around Earth. “Common sense” told us air travel and telephony were impossible. “Common sense” told us that quantum mechanics just couldn’t be true. For these reasons, “common sense” merits a low position in any rational truth-seeker’s tool shed.

The Greatest Thing In The World: Index

April 3, 2012

The following is an index for Henry Drummond’s sermon on 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (the “love” passages), reprinted from the complete, unabridged version of “The Greatest Thing In The World” by Spire Books (ISBN unknown). Highly recommended for believers of all types and atheists interested in learning more about the Bible.

The Greatest Thing In The World: The Defence (2)

March 30, 2012

*The following is reprinted from the complete, unabridged version of “The Greatest Thing In The World” by Henry Drummond, Spire Books, ISBN unknown

I have said this thing is eternal. Did you ever notice how continually John associates love and faith with eternal life? I was not told when I was a boy that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should have everlasting life.” What I was told, I remember, was, that God so loved the world that, if I trusted in Him, I was to have a thing called peace, or I was to have rest, or I was to have joy, or I was to have safety. But I had to find out for myself that whosoever trusteth in Him—that is, whosoever loveth Him, for trust is only the avenue to Love—hath everlasting life The Gospel offers a man life.

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