Dear Colleague: It’s time for Christianity to reclaim the intellectual high ground we once held. That means you and I have a lot of work to do. Chances are some of it will be different from what we've been doing. There is a new frontier in apologetics today. The big questions are no longer what they used to be. And most of us are just beginning to see it. It’s no longer … [Read more...]
Review: Boghossian's A Manual for Creating Atheists
The atheist Twitter-sphere has been abuzz over Peter Boghossian’s A Manual for Creating Atheists, and regular readers here know that I’ve been eagerly anticipating its publication. It came out almost two weeks ahead of its announced Nov. 1 release. I’d like to say I was happy about that, but I’m not. A Few Words of Appreciation—But Only a Few It’s not that I’m completely … [Read more...]
To Tell Truth From Error: The Church's Teaching Responsibility
We don't know how to tell truth from error, and it's time for the church to take responsibility. The Roman Catholic Church in New York is promoting Jesus Christ as "The Original Hipster." I saw that on the news not long ago, just a day after I found out an online poll by Prospect magazine had Richard Dawkins being named the world's top thinker.Neither of these speaks well for … [Read more...]
"Moral Bioenhancement" and Academic Blindness
David DeGrazia, professor at George Washington University, has written a peer-reviewed paper for the Journal of Medical Ethics on "Moral Bioenhancement" (MB). The suggestion is to "encourage or require" advanced technologies, including genetic and embryonic "selection" to enhance the moral status of the human race. I learned about this through William Briggs's excellent … [Read more...]
If You Believe Atheism Is True, Then Atheism Is False
Alex Rosenberg, the atheistic philosopher, ended his recent debate with William Lane Craig by admitting he believes that no thoughts are about anything. He meant exactly that. No thought is about anything. This may come as rather a shock to some readers. It's strange. It's really strange. One consequence of it (if Rosenberg is right) is that if you believe atheism is true, … [Read more...]
Trilemma or Quadrilemma? Answering the "Legend" Critique of C.S. Lewis's Trilemma
C.S. Lewis's famous Liar/Lunatic/Lord trilemma has been criticized for leaving out a fourth option: Legend. There are historical and textual reasons to doubt the legend hypothesis, but I believe it fails even apart from that external evidence. It's vanishingly unlikely to be true, based upon merely the New Testament documents themselves. … [Read more...]
Apologetics: Fighting Last Year's Battles, Last Year's Way
I was privileged to lead the True Reason project earlier this year, which I undertook because I thought it would be good to show how weak New Atheist leaders are in reasoning, even as they try to feature it as their great strength. I think the book has probably done a lot of good. I hope so, anyway. But I am coming to see that it's a skirmish being fought on an old … [Read more...]
"If You Don't Want God, You'd Better Have a Multiverse"
Late in 2008 Discover Magazine published an article that contains one of the clearest reasons any scientist has ever stated for favoring multiverse theory. I encourage you to follow this through to the end for the key statement, and then ask yourself: is he reasoning from science or from theology? Discover Magazine tackled the fine-tuning problem in a December 2008 article … [Read more...]
The Rev. Phil Snider in Missouri: Argument or Theatre?
It's truly viral: the Rev. Dr. Phil Snider's message to the Springfield City Council on gay rights. Unfortunately it's a great example of truth tanked by theatrics, reason steamrolled by emotion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u4Z3n2Fnyc It leaves a powerful impression, but what's his argument? How would you fill in the following blanks to express his point in rational, … [Read more...]
The Truth Holds Us
In a world of religious and ideological divisions, hardly anything evokes more anger than saying, "I know the truth." A statement like that may be tolerated in mathematics and science, though even scientists are wary of it, knowing how often the "truths" of one age are later corrected or replaced. In morality and religion, though, it's downright offensive. Relativism reigns. … [Read more...]