April 30, 2009
Last week, we stopped in the middle of page 34, and Atheist Universe had already racked up 4 hasty generalizations, 2 rhetorically bolstered arguments, 1 epistemological nightmare and 2 strawman arguments. In the positive, the chapter also aspires to a worthy cause, and contained 1 well-spoken observation that everyone can agree on. Let's return to see how the next ten points go…
April 27, 2009
Often in discussions of (a)theism, an atheist or unbelieving skeptic will say, "We've learned tons of things from science. What have we learned from religion, revelation or prayer?"
I've heard several variants of this argument that are more or less categorically identical, and much like the first move of a pawn influences the outcome of a game of chess, the subsequent responses also tend to follow with a uniform predictability: The believer either answers unsatisfactorily or not at all, or if the believer does answer, the atheist or unbelieving skeptic will typically deny that what the believer offered was actually learned from religion, revelation or prayer.
This is where I've seen most discussions on the matter come to a screeching halt. This is unfortunate, as the believer need only to realize that what's going on is an rhetorical farce, then rebut the atheist or unbelieving skeptic with a few quick and sturdy replies.
April 23, 2009
So, the first chapter in David Mills' Atheist Universe is titled, "Interview With An Atheist."
As I was reading, I quickly realized I was making lots of red marks in the margins and body copy. Of those marks, I include the strongest and most relevant arguments, and discard weaker, less persuasive ones. Even so, I could see as early as page 31 that my critique of Chapter 1 was going to take multiple posts. The chapter itself is over 40 pages long, and as a general custom, I'm won't critique more than ten points in any one post in this series. Ten is probably too many already.
I suspect much of this chapter's purpose was to rebut common misconceptions people have about atheists. This is a noble cause. I sympathize with any misunderstood minority party, because there's perhaps nothing more frustrating in life than having people insult you based on what they think you believe, which is often wrong. All in all, Mills does a good job setting some things straight, but unfortunately, he also affirms just as many common misconceptions about Christians. Nonetheless, considering that religious tension and distrust of atheists was still considerably high in this country when Atheist Universe was published (2004), I'd say the chapter was appropriate. Nobody deserves to be on the receiving end of ignorance, especially in a religio-political climate of hostility such as the first few years after 9/11.
Still, that doesn't mean "Interview With An Atheist" was without problems, and in my opinion, the first one worth mentioning comes on page 28.
April 17, 2009
In X-Files Friday: The Ultimate Superstition, DD cites Geisler and Turek,
David Hume argued that miracles cannot affirm any one religion because miracles are based on poor testimony and all religions have them. In other words, miracle claims are self canceling. Unfortunately for Hume, his objection does not describe the actual state of affairs. First, Hume makes a hasty generalization by saying that alleged miracles from all religions are alike. As we’ve seen since chapter 9, the miracles associated with Christianity are not based on poor testimony. They are based on early, eyewitness, multiple-source testimony that is unrivaled in any other world religion. That is, no other world religion has verified miracles like those in the New Testament. (G&T)
…then says,
What we have in the New Testament is a well-documented, well-preserved record of people making claims. This does not constitute a body of verified miracles. (DD)
I agree. I've certainly not been afraid to criticize some of G&T's strategies elsewhere, and I agree that in this citation, G&T conflate claims with verification – and that's wrong. To me, it appears G&T simply presume the correctness of that which they are trying to prove, by alluding to it as verified. However, G&T's criticisms of Hume happen to be spot-on, and quite pertinent to our ongoing miracle discussion. That being said, I've also complimented DD's logical prowess elsewhere, but this time he did not address G&T's citation squarely at all – just flanked them with Benny Hinn before proceeding on to their "One Solitary Man" ideas.
April 13, 2009
This morning I'd like to write a post about something that happened a year or so ago, something that pops into my head quite frequently ever since it happened.
It was just after eight o'clock when a buddy of mine who is also a published writer and also likes to drink beer called me up with the equivalent of, "Let's catch the bus down to club so-and-so, and grab a coupla' beers."
"Okay," was my immediate response, and that's how this story starts.
April 8, 2009
So I'm part of the lovely little soiree about miracles that's been going on over at DD's for months. The purpose of today's post is to strain some of my points from that debate, and eventually I hope to distill them into one concise listing.
When I entered the discussion over at DD's, I just happened to be fresh off the heels of a similar argument, and my first comment criticized attempts to verify miracles without agreed-upon definitions and criteria. More specifically, in the context of allegedly miraculous healing, I asked how we might eliminate confounders such as spontaneous remission and the placebo effect. Commenters John Morales and jim both chimed in at this point.
March 20, 2009
First let me be clear: I consider myself a rational person, and the point of this post is not to denigrate rationalism or rationalists. The value of rationalism as a truth-filter and its tremendous impact on modern society cannot be overstated. When appropriately applied, the philosophy of rationalism leads to or complies with all sorts of tried-and-true concepts: The presumption of innocence sans proof of guilt, the scientific method, the burden of proof, etc. All of these things are sound derivatives of an evidence-based epistemology and by no means do I intend to challenge them.
Yet, any idea can descend into dogma, and no philosophy is good when our application of it encourages rigidity. Consequently, I've noticed I don't always agree with the scope and popular interpretations of rationalism that have ascended to the apex of today's epistemological food chain. In my opinion, they lend themselves all too well to dogmatic thinking and provide the perfect cover for those who unconsciously make the converse mistake of the gullible.
Going further, I often wonder if contemporary interpretations of rationalism entail an irrecoverable contradiction, and therein lies the topic of the post: Contemporary rationalism tells us to assume all claims without evidence are false, yet there's no evidence to support the claim that all claims without evidence are false, so on what evidence might we rest?
**Note: This is not an argument, conclusion or suggestion that all claims are equally credible, either, so don't start flanking me from that direction.
March 17, 2009
So it appears Deacon Duncan has accused me of post hoc reasoning regarding an objection I made to his elaboration on my re-capitation example. I'd like to take a moment to discuss why I feel his complaints are based on an overly-charitable interpretation of my objection, and I'm curious to hear what you think. The linked post is part of a lengthy ongoing discussion, so a little backstory might be helpful.
For the past month or so at EvangelicalRealism, we've been discussing the amount of credibility we can reasonably assign to miracle stories. Now, everyone has different definitions of a miracle and different thresholds of skepticism through which they filter observed events. Phenomena like the Marian apparitions at Zeitoun are obviously sufficient to convince some people, yet others remain skeptical. So how might we define a miracle objectively, in a manner that anyone can apply to any observed event?
I entered the discussion attempting to establish a rigorous set of criteria one could apply to determine whether or not any event might be considered a miracle. That didn't work out very well, so in further attempts to determine the 'miracle switch' in everybody's brains, I introduced the re-capitated man as a hypothetical example, asking skeptics how they would parse such an event. That is, if we observed a man get decapitated, then an hour later we observe the man's head re-attach after which he goes into the bar for a drink, would we have grounds to say something "miraculous" had occurred?
March 12, 2009
I've been waiting for another opportunity to poke holes in the lavish presuppositions folks often bring to POE arguments and this recent banter was just what I needed to get motivated.
To review, the Omni^4 Claim is the idea that the God of the Bible simultaneously possesses the following four qualities: omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence and omnipresence. IOW, that the God of the Bible is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving and all-present. As an aside, many people disregard omnipresence as irrelevant to POE arguments, but I thought I'd throw it in there for historical accuracy if nothing else.
March 11, 2009
So I was about to hit "post" when I took a break, and found myself randomly staring at a TV that was on. It was that History Channel show called MonsterQuest and now you probably see the significance of the title. The show begins with narration on the nature of different sorts of monsters, you know, Big Foot, the New Jersey Devil, Werewolves, et cetera: "Monsters. Are they real? Or imaginary? Join us as science tries to find out."
That's exactly what's been going on at EvangelicalRealism for the past few weeks now: we've been on a MiracleQuest. Except that MonsterQuest can at least define exactly or near-exactly what it is they're looking for. Despite my stodginess on the issue and the naysayers, I think we'll soon solve these problems of definition and criteria. The more we talk about it, the more ideas get tossed out, the bigger the pile of potentially good ideas grows, and sooner or later we're there.