Tag: apologetic method
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You’re Only Christian Because…
So you’ve played a couple hands with your atheist friend by now. When he plays his 3 tens, you reveal a Full House. Suddenly, on the next hand he has a 2 of hearts, and Jack of spades, a Wild card, and a Level 57 Charizard. You pause, look at him sideways, and he grins back at you, basking in your inability to respond to his awesome play. He’s revealed, so he thinks, a deus ex machina (he seems to have lots of those). It’s a play sure to throw anybody off who isn’t prepared or knowledgeable about the game. …
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The Recent Rise of Covenantal Apologetics (3 of 10)
Covenantal apologetics have virtually no place in the academy.
It’s not that they shouldn’t have a place in the academy. It’s just that they don’t.
But why would we expect anything different? Covenantal apologetics are firmly grounded in the Christian worldview and are used to cast down every thought exemplifying its antithesis. It is not merely that non-Christians will misunderstand or reject covenantal apologetics in an intellectual sense, but rather that they will not even like them. So we should not expect to see covenantal apologetics pulling up a chair next to Naturalistic Atheism or Thomistic Christianity in the …
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Answering the Evidentialist Objection
Introduction
Oversimplification. The unbeliever, and the New Atheist in particular, thrive on it. The situation is no different when it comes to the strong demands for “evidence” in the context of apologetic debate. “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence” was the plea Bertrand Russell planned to use when he came face to face with God. I suspect it did not go over well.
Yet the loudest non-Christian voices among us continue to parrot Russell’s silly sentiment. It has even been given a name. The “evidentialist objection.” It is quite frequently captured in the contention that Christians should immediately provide …
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Dear Atheists: Please Get Better Objections
Joe is an atheist who takes issue with my asking another commenter about supporting evidence for his claims. When I asked the other visitor, “what’s your evidence that only evidence matters?” Joe responded, “Sir, you may not be stupid, but this phrase is nonsense. YOU use evidence to support everything.”
Apparently Joe buys into the idea that only evidence matters, that everyone uses evidence to support everything, and even that every claim must be supported with evidence. But if every claim must be supported by evidence, then the claim, “every claim must be supported with evidence” must also be supported …
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Know the Scriptures
The other day at a prayer meeting at church, my pastor gave a brief sermon on the following passage:
…Matthew 22:23-31 That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. 24 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. 26 The same thing happened to the second
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The Recent Rise of Covenantal Apologetics (2 of 10)
Douglas Wilson contends that there are, “…two tenets (of modern feminism): 1. men are jerks, and 2. women should strive by all means to become like them.” So who is this Doug Wilson? He is the witty guy who made the similar claim that, “There are two tenets of atheism: One, there is no God. Two, I hate him.” Wilson holds undergraduate degrees in Classical Studies and Philosophy and a Master’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Idaho. He serves in Idaho as the pastor of Christ Church and is a professor at New Saint Andrews College (which he …
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Paul Baird On His Informal Discussion With Me
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The New Atheism: Logical Positivism for the Masses
Over the course of the last year or so I have become increasingly convinced that the so-called New Atheism is merely a popular form of the now thoroughly rebutted, outdated and extinct radical empiricist philosophy of logical positivism.
In the last several weeks I have happened upon a few atheist sites that make the connection explicit.
Some time ago I left a comment on Triablogue in which I claimed, “As classical foundationalists and naive evidentialists, fundamentalist atheists are the flat-earthers of philosophy.” (Dustin Segers later used the “flat-earthers of philosophy” phrase in one of his exchanges.)
The same is …
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Rhology Responds to Reasonable Doubts (part 2)