The debate between William Lane Craig and Stephen Law has sent what amounts to shockwaves through the Christian community. Law’s “Evil God” argument is certainly interesting. These are some thoughts and criticisms about Stephen Law’s Evil God argument. The argument is: 1. If gratuitous good exists, then Evil God does not exist. 2. Gratuitous good exists. 3. Therefore, Evil God … [Read more...]
Filtering Science From Dawkins’ Scientism
In "Growing Up in the Universe" lecture, Richard Dawkins informed us that, “The universe is nothing but a collection of atoms in motion, human beings are simply machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living object’s sole reason for living.”[1] Dawkins’ metascience is ingeniously knitted in science in a way that a … [Read more...]
Book Review: Cold Case Christianity
Introduction Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels (Paperback Kindle, Audiobook) is one of the latest books to examine the evidence for the reliability of the New Testament. Detective Jim Wallace was an atheist before he began putting Christianity to the same tests that he places witnesses and suspects to in his investigations of … [Read more...]
You're only an atheist because you were raised in an atheist home.
Contributed by Matthew Clayton of Loving Christ with Your Mind. One time, if I remember correctly, for my brother's stagecraft class, he had an assignment to make a birdhouse and it seems as though one of the requirements was that it be painted. I believe he was busy (I don't know the situation's exact details) so he asked my sisters if they'd like to paint it. And, of course, … [Read more...]
Science vs. God on the Stossel Show
On December 13, an episode of the Stossel show titled "Science vs. God" aired on the Fox Business Channel. John Stossel opens the show asking questions and making statements about the origin of the universe, the origin of life, evolution vs. intelligent design, and whether or not God is involved. Three segments of interest to Christian apologists would be the opening panel … [Read more...]
Flew, Dawkins And God
In “There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind”, the British philosophy professor, late Antony Flew, shared his reasons for converting from atheism to deism. “We must follow the argument wherever it leads”, a principle that Plato attributed to Socrates, was the norm to which Flew followed (Flew 2007: 46). With increasing evidences of the … [Read more...]
Materialism, Atheism, and the Denial of Freewill
If we start with an impoverished worldview – one that fails to embrace all of reality’s nuances – it means that we have a faulty worldview and that our conclusions will be skewed. The atheist starts out with the presupposition or worldview that there is no spiritual reality, just matter and energy – what you see is what you get. Accordingly, thinking and choosing must also be … [Read more...]
Tis the Season for Christian Reason
At least two times a year, you can count on the insecurity of some atheist organizations (like the Freedom from Religion Foundation) to be on full display. Nothing threatens these atheist’s worldview quite like the celebration of Jesus’ birth and resurrection, so to help ease their anxiety, they erect billboards and other such signage’s that are aimed at telling Christians how … [Read more...]
Stephen Law on the Non-existence of Jesus of Nazareth
Reprinted with the gracious permission of William Lane Craig. In his blog, atheist philosopher Stephen Law formulated the following skeptical argument against Jesus' existence: 1. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In the absence of extraordinary evidence there's excellent reason to be skeptical about the claims. 2. There is not extraordinary evidence for … [Read more...]
Fallacy Friday: Ad Populum (Appeals to Popularity)
This week I am going to look at the ad populum fallacy. Ad populum is Latin for “appeal to the people”. This fallacy occurs when a person argues that a particular claim is true because a large number of people accept it. Put crudely it contends that a position is true because it is popular – a majority of people, or a majority of one’s peers accept it. Appeals to what others … [Read more...]