For the last few Fridays I have been publishing a blog series on logical fallacies. This begs the question, what fallacy will I discuss today? The above sentence illustrates how the phrase “begs the question” is commonly misused. To test how pervasive this misuse is I typed “this begs the question” into Google and limited it to New Zealand; every single result on the first … [Read more...]
Level-headed, deliberate, accurate
On my blog I want to share stories of successes as well as failures, and today's is a story of success. And, as a self-deprecating Canadian who will readily point out my own failure but is reluctant to highlight my own success, sharing this story is somewhat therapeutic for me. I have plenty of failures and I'm sure we'll look at some of those in the future (I already shared … [Read more...]
The Nativity Defended
The Nativity and, in particular, the virgin birth has increasingly come under attack from liberal scholarship in recent years. Those committed to a naturalistic worldview dismiss the virgin birth of Jesus as fanciful. Some have even questioned whether Jesus was born in Bethlehem and whether Mary and Joseph’s venture to this town was prompted by the Roman census as recorded by … [Read more...]
Fallacy Friday: The Fallacy of False Cause & Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
This week I will look at the fallacy of false cause and in particular the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. These fallacies occur when one conflates the fact that two things occur at the same time or in close succession with the conclusion that one caused the other. Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc This neat little clip from the West Wing gives a good example: … [Read more...]
Jehovah's Witnesses meet Grace, Patience
If you've poked around at my blog at all then you'll know that I am always on the lookout for great stories of people interacting with others from which we can learn lessons. This story blew my mind. Frankly this is pretty much a case study in getting things exactly right! This will be a bit of a longer blog post because there are just so many things to discuss and so many … [Read more...]
Fallacy Friday: Division and Composition
Today I want to look at two fallacies, the fallacy of composition and the fallacy of division. These two fallacies are related in that they both mistakenly confuse what is true of the parts with what is true of the whole. The Fallacy of Composition The fallacy of composition involves mistakenly reasoning that what is true of all the parts of something is therefore true of the … [Read more...]
Apologetics seasoned with grace
I don't know about you but when I'm chatting to someone about Christianity or Philosophy I always appreciate and enjoy the conversations where the person I'm speaking to seems to take a genuine interest in what I'm saying, listens to my points, doesn't constantly interrupt me and takes my point of view seriously even if they disagree with what I'm saying. As human beings there … [Read more...]
Is One Lost Soul More Valuable Than Another?
Over the past few years, I've had increasing numbers of friends and acquaintances becoming involved in foreign missions. I find great blessing in offering practical and prayerful support to their assignments; I greatly admire their obedience to God in answering the call to be fishers of men in poor, often dangerous areas of the world--places where false religion abounds and the … [Read more...]
Resolving Euthyphro's Dilemma
The dialogue known as Euthyphro is recorded by Plato and took place between Euthyphro and Socrates, as Socrates was nearing the time of his trial and execution in 399 B.C.. The famous Euthyphro Dilemma at 10a is only part of this dialogue. We need to distinguish between the dialogue (Euthyphro), which starts out asking for the definition of the Good (a matter of epistemology), … [Read more...]
Know-it-all Syndrome
Here's an all-too-typical story from the front lines of Apologetics. I was once doing some evangelism with a friend on my college campus. We engaged a guy in conversation about God, and things quickly became heated. He was an international student, not at all Christian, and had a more or less pluralist view of religion. He had thought about it just enough that the conversation … [Read more...]