A staple for skeptics of religion on social media is the use of memes: pictures with captions that quickly elucidate an argument or display a contradiction in doctrine or Scripture. Most arguments against Christianity can be articulated in a sentence or two, but it takes a 1,000 word article to unpack. That isn't universal, however. To wit, I have selected three memes I … [Read more...]
Do Apologists Employ the "Humpty Dumpty" Defense?
When Alice meets Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass, she finds that he uses words very creatively. In fact, a word means exactly what Humpty wants it to mean, no more and no less. Christian apologists are sometimes accused of employing a “Humpty Dumpty Defense” by our opponents. This particularly is seen with faith, which is understood as a form of loyalty to a … [Read more...]
Atheism and Death
A blog called Just Atheists was written by a group of atheists who tried to explore ethics and justice in the absence of a Creator who grants us those things. One author named Brian J. Sabel wrote a post in March 2008 that explored death and why he believed that a nonreligious view of death was superior to the religious one. Unfortunately, the original article is long gone. … [Read more...]
Is Religion a Negative Force in the World?
It's common for the nonreligious to claim that religion is to blame for all of the negativity in the world: wars, overpopulation, ignorance of science, bad parenting, and so on. Religion is a terrible, horrible thing they contend and is fit only for elimination. After that, the world can go on. But is religion as horrible as these folks claim? A user at ThinkAtheist named … [Read more...]
What is True Christianity(tm)? (part 3)
In part 1, I talked about how skeptics and atheists often complain when I (or another apologist) make the comment that such-and-so Christian is wrong. The skeptic usually says it means I have found “True Christianity™” and every other Christian who disagrees is going to go to hell. In part 2, I discussed degrees of wrong, using a traffic light as a guide. Green light is 99% … [Read more...]
What is True Christianity(tm)? (part 2)
In my last post, I said that we should bow to the weaker brother and let him have his ritual. If he thinks that we must be baptized by triune immersion in a lake, then let him get baptized that way. If he thinks all Christians should abstain from alcohol, then don’t crack open an ice-cold Corona with a lime wedge in front of him. In the non-essentials of faith, let the … [Read more...]
What is True Christianity(tm)? (part 1)
If one Christian is right on a matter of doctrine and this contradicts what another denomination believes on that same doctrine, then one is right and one is wrong. Not a radical notion, but we see the same response from the atheists. They sarcastically say that the one who thinks he's right must have found True Christianity™ and that he believes every other Christian will … [Read more...]
Do Atheists Have Morals?
Atheists really like to fight against us ignorant theists who say they have no morals. We’re the backwards hicks who take instruction from a book written by ignorant goat-herders who believed the earth was flat and that the sky was a dome that contained the sun, moon, and stars (all of which circled the earth!). What do we know about morality? Atheists are so enlightened … [Read more...]
"Six Ways of Atheism" Answered
Geoffrey Berg, an unknown author with credentials he is deliberately concealing, has written a book entitled The Six Ways of Atheism: New Logical Disproofs of the Existence of God. Berg touts the book as definitively disproving the existence of God, and containing arguments completely original to him. As it happens, neither is true. None of the arguments are original to him, … [Read more...]
God is Logically Impossible — Or Is He?
In 1974, George H. Smith wrote a little book called Atheism: The Case Against God. In it, he made an ontological argument against God's existence. I found it intriguing, since I'm currently studying the ontological argument for God's existence. So let's take a look at it in reverse. To be is to be something as opposed to nothing, and to be something is to be something … [Read more...]