Posts Tagged by naturalism
Barker’s Rebuttal to Kingsley’s Easter Answer: A Dud
| May 28, 2009 | Posted by Anthony under apologetics, atheism, Blog, General |
Barker’s Challenge explicitly says: “…without omitting a single detail…write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension… [it] does not have to pretend to present a perfect picture- it only needs to give at least one plausible account of all of the facts. … The important condition to the challenge, however, is that not one single biblical detail be omitted.”
Who among us is surprised to hear that by ‘plausible’ Barker basically means ‘naturalistic explanations’? Even I, I mean, even I, was shocked to hear Barker dismiss the plausibility of Kingsley’s chronology because, well, one must adopt a naturalistic perspective of what counts as ‘plausible’! Unbelievable! Consider this exchange leading into Part 2: [More…]
Dan: Yes. But we’re not there yet. In order for your evidence to be admissible, you have to produce a coherent, noncontradictory, plausible version of it.
Elizabeth: And that is the point of your Easter Challenge. I understand. So the only way for us to proceed is to assume that we are both naturalists, simply looking at the details of the stories themselves, on their own merits.
Dan: Yes. That’s all I was trying to say.
Scientism: The Atheist’s Religion of Faith
| March 23, 2009 | Posted by Anthony under atheism, Blog, evolution, General, morality, Obama, Papers, philosophy, politics, science, scientism, Secular Humanism, theism |
In light of what I have said above it may come as a surprise that I have a very high view of science. But it’s true. I believe that you need the right tool for the job and in many cases that tool is empirical scrutiny. But other jobs require other tools and no hemming and hawwing will change that. For some jobs a hammer, for others a screwdriver and others, pliers. You may have found that sometimes one gets lucky- a screwdriver is best for screws but at last resort a hammer did the trick. But try changing your lightbulb with a hammer and tell me how that goes. 😉
Let the hammer pound nails and the screwdriver drive screws and air compressor pump up the tire: the right tool for the job, and be wary of anyone who insists on using just one tool for all jobs, and watch out especially if they don’t want anyone looking over their shoulder while they are ‘at work’ and even berate you for suggesting other approaches.
Literary Apologetics Key to Turning the Tide
| February 10, 2009 | Posted by Anthony under atheism, Blog, Christian Short Stories, Christianity and Culture, Global Warming, Philip Pullman, theism |
Christians are not losing on facts, argument, logic, evidence, and reasoning. We are losing because we are not effectively transmitting the faith to the next generations and probably haven’t been doing so for some time. With more nonChristians in society, logically enough, this is manifested in pop culture. Fixing how we pass on the faith is one of the most important things Christians must do. With more informed and grounded Christians in pop culture, this will have its logical effect.
The second thing is we have to fight fire with fire. The author of the ChristianityToday article doesn’t make this point and I am at a loss as to why not. He does say, correctly:
“…the church needs to broaden its apologetics work to include serious analysis of and response to popular culture, now our most potent form of religious persuasion.
The Regularity of Natural Laws is a Pre-Condition for Reliably Detecting God
| October 18, 2008 | Posted by Anthony under Blog, General |
So, far from being evidence for atheism and far from supporting a presumption of naturalism, the observed patterns of the universe are the pre-requisite, the minimal requirement, for reliably detecting a supernatural agent, namely God. That doesn’t mean that there is a God. It doesn’t mean we have to believe every report of a violation of the laws of nature that we hear. It does mean that we can’t dismiss them out of hand if the very point of our investigation is to decide if there is a God, for it is precisely such accounts- and only these kinds of accounts- that could allow us to reliably determine that there is a God.
Response to Clark on Naturalism, Faith and Reason, Revelation and Miracle
| October 5, 2008 | Posted by Anthony under Antony Flew, Blog, General |
At the very least, then, Mr. Curtis has faith in reason. As do I. But I understand that reason brings us always to a point of decision where the consequences of that decision might conceivably be other than we suppose. It is always possible that even after a thousand times my chair will break. Technically, it is even possible that all of the atoms will align and I’ll simply pass through it. Yet I sit. Likewise, faith in God is not simply the belief that there is a God, but rather trust in God. Whether or not that is a reasonable trust or an unreasonable one is a separate question but at least let us acknowledge that faith as the Christians present it is not only compatible with reason, but essential when it comes to acting on reason.
One Atheist Admits I’m Right, Another Responds to Big Bang Post
| September 26, 2008 | Posted by Anthony under abortion, Antony Flew, Blog |
Atheist One. It is not very often that you get an admission as clear as the one that was posted on my forum today. I asserted in this post on my blog that at the bottom, most atheistic arguments against the existence of God are based on the ‘presumption of naturalism’ with The atheist on […]
Response to Curtis Clark on Naturalism- A Breath of Fresh Air
| September 18, 2008 | Posted by Anthony under Blog, General |
Recently an atheist stumbled upon my site and in the course of corresponding with him I have discovered that our different points of view aside, he is a gentleman that I can have a conversation with. His site is called The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism and he recently put up a post responding to a […]
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