Reflections on the Resurrection Argument w/ Randal and Robert

Last year after publishing my Countering the Resurrection video I participated in an informal discussion/debate with one of my favorite Christian apologists, Randal Rauser to discuss it. We were on Robert White’s YouTube channel and had a very friendly discussion.

Looking back on it, I appreciate both Randal and Robert’s time and I wanted to recount areas of the discussion where I think there were mistakes in points they or myself brought up, and to reflect on how I’d revise things in light of the good faith criticism I received in the discussion. 

With Easter being around the corner, I figured now would be a good time to finally get moving to produce something to help strengthen my argument against their objections. 

If you want to watch the hour long discussion you can view it here.

Prescriptive Oughts and Atheism: Round 3

Sometimes I miss comment replies for a while.

Then I will notice them and note that I should write something in response, but life happens and I forget.  This is one of those times.

I was having an enjoyable exchange with apologist Maverick Christian (referred to as MC), and his last comment on that thread was left unanswered.  Since the exchange is interesting I've decided to put another actual post on the topic up rather than leave good content buried in a comment thread.

I actually hope that MC doesn't mind my responding so late in this fashion, and I apologize for there being such a delay.  That all said, lets begin.

Prescriptive Ought Part 2: The Revenge!

Maverick Christian (hereby MC) took the time to respond tomy post on his conception of a “prescriptive ought” and I’ve just had too much going on in the real world to craft a proper reply till now.   

In the interim he’s also been busy on a few Facebook threads on the Real Atheology page giving some additional descriptions on how he grounds his prescriptive ought, which I’ll be responding to here as well. 

The Mysterious Case of the Prescriptive Ought

A while ago I had a very pleasant debate on the moral argument with a person named Wade who blogs under the nickname Maverick Christian.   He’s been commenting on the Real Atheology Facebook post I made regarding my new video series, and I wanted to write a post explaining the problems I see with his views. 

The last bit of advice for Michael Nugent

I've written two other posts for Michael Nugent on his upcoming debate with William Lane Craig.

Thus far I've focused on refuting Craig's arguments, which is largely my main purpose behind this blog/YouTube account.

But a debate with a prominent apologist isn't completely about simply showing that their cumulative case approach of arguments doesn't work.  A debate is as much about the show between two debaters, and the interactions on stage are going to sadly play far more of a role in viewers minds about "who won" rather than whether Michael was able to refute all of Craig's arguments.

So this is my final piece of advice: Attack! Attack! Attack!

How? Well lets get on to it.

Advice for Michael Nugent - Part 2

Last week I wrote a post dealing with a wide variety of problems for the Kalam Cosmological Argument as a piece of advice for Michael Nugent in his upcoming debate with Christian apologist William Lane Craig.

While I don't intend to go into nearly as much depth here, I did want to sketch a few objections I find to be very strong to the common arguments Craig presents: The Fine Tuning Argument and the Moral Argument.

So lets begin.

Advice for Michael Nugent on Debating William Lane Craig

It was recently announced that Michael Nugent, the Chair of Atheist Ireland, will be debating Christian apologist William Lane Craig.

Michael reached out for advice over Twitter and while I gave him a quick bit of info, I wanted to put together a primer for him on a few key points he may want to use in his upcoming debate.  I figure this can possibly be useful for people looking for a quick overview on counter arguments to Craig's standard argument line as well.

Before I get into the grimy details, I wanted to note a few things.

Cheering for Jeff Lowder

Tomorrow, renowned Internet Infidel Jeffrey Jay Lowder will be debating Christian Apologist Frank Turek at Washburn University on September 21, 2016.

Unfortunately the debate will not be live streamed, but it will be recorded and should be posted online afterwards.  Suffice it to say if you can attend this one live, go do so.

Why am I posting about this? Because it's hard to overstate the amount of respect I have for Jeff Lowder. When it comes to doing counter apologetics on the internet, Jeff is one of the OG's. In 1995 he co-founded and was President of Internet Infidels, one of the most accessible and comprehensive resources of serious atheist thought in philosophy of religion online. When I was deconverting, infidels.org was invaluable.

This isn't just a case of someone being the first to do something, Jeff currently blogs over at The Secular Outpost and I consider him to be one of the best people making atheist content on the internet.

He is extremely precise in his work and in his charitable representation of the views of his opponents. He's also extremely well versed in apologetic arguments and counter points.  He's literally got at least 20 years of studying this topic, and if you search Internet Infidels or his posts on The Secular Outpost you'll see he has an educated position on all of the common arguments.

Basically, Jeff knows his shit.

He's squaring off against Frank Turek, a very successful apologist. Frank isn't a Alvin Plantinga or a Richard Swinburne, that is he's not a professional philosopher. He's someone who takes philosophical arguments and presents them in accessible ways. This is not to insult Frank Turek at all, or to say that he doesn't understand his material - he does.  He's a clearly a professional communicator, and from what I've seen of his debates he's a pretty damn good one at that.  If I was an Evangelical Christian, I'd be glad to have someone as effective as Frank Turek communicating my views.

Jeff isn't a professional philosopher either, but I think Jeff knows the material so well that he will be able to point out the problems with Frank's arguments in ways Frank probably hasn't had much experience with.  This will serve to deflate the aura of certainty that Franks apologetic style comes off as selling to evangelicals, and that's a service we should applaud as atheists.

This will definitely be one to watch if you care about precision in the philosophy underlying the theism vs atheism debate.  I eagerly look forward to the video or audio being released online, it should be quite the debate.

Go Jeff Go!

Debate Review: Matt Dillahunty vs. Blake Giunta

After hearing that Matt Dillahunty was debating Blake Giunta, I was excited to see a YouTube video  of the debate go up and had it on as background for work this morning. 

I happen to like Matt and I actually like when I’ve heard Blake on various atheist podcasts, like Dogma Debate. He certainly comes off far better than the majority of popular apologists I’m familiar with.

I was prodded from my Blog/Video slumber to put something up for this debate, so here we go.  Let’s start with Blake’s case.

Cheering for Justin Schieber

This weekend Justin Schieber of the Reasonable Doubts podcast is going to be debating Randal Rauser at the University of Alberta. 

These two fine gentlemen will be following up their debate the next day with a dialog on Belief and Doubt in the 21st Century.

Fortunately for those of us unable to travel that far, plans are to have at least audio, if not video of the debate and discussion available for public consumption online.  Hopefully it won't be long after the debate before it's available.

Evidence that the Universe has Always Existed

This is a topic that comes up fairly often for me, given that the cosmological argument is what drew me into counter apologetics.  If you've followed my videos as well as the more prestigious debates on the topic, none of the information here is going to be new to you.

I've said before that both theists and atheists necessarily think that "something has always existed".  So long as you accept the axiom that "something can not come from nothing", you're going to be faced with the above conclusion.

Theists think a god has always existed.

Atheists (generally) think that something material has always existed.

What I wanted to do is provide the philosophical and scientific evidence that we have for the atheists conclusion.

Both the theist and the atheist agree that "something material" currently exists, and certainly theism is compatible with the idea that something material has also "always existed".  It is notable that the specific Christian dogma creation ex nihilo is not compatible, so they're going to have problems with the evidence I'm about to present.

So lets get to it.

Cheering for Sean Carroll

If you haven't already heard, Sean Carroll is going to be debating William Lane Craig.

There are a few things I want to say about this.

I've watched a lot of WLC debates over the years and at this point there are only a few people who would make me excited enough to watch another Craig debate.

Sean Carroll is one of those people.

I'm a huge fan of Dr. Carroll, primarily because he's a cosmologist that is philosophically informed.  He organized a Naturalism Workshop with some of the best naturalist scientists and philosophers alive and made it all available online for free (you should watch it).  He's an outspoken atheist and naturalist, but more importantly he's a great communicator.  I can watch the man give talks and afterwards I always feel like I'm better informed because of it.

If you clicked the link to Dr. Carroll's blog you'll see that most of the things he's read are predicting that he'll get clobbered.  Dr. Carroll has stated he isn't aiming to win the debate, but rather to "say things that are true and understandable, and establish a reasonable case for naturalism, especially focusing on issues related to cosmology".

I don't think Carroll is going to get clobbered and I think he should be optimistic.  I want to present a few reasons why I think Carroll will do great, some areas of concern, and some humble advice.

I was on Atheist Hangouts

Work and family life has been pretty crazy lately, so I'm a bit late in putting this up here for general sharing, especially since it's not hosted on my YouTube channel. 

I was on an Atheist Hangout hosted by Gamma Atheist last Thursday night.  It was a mock debate with Karlton George.

I have to say it was an absolute blast, and I really enjoyed interacting with Karl.  He's an apostate like me, and his former apologist credentials are absolutely spot on.  He was throwing out stuff so hard and fast on the first real exchange we had where he played the apologist that I come across as completely flummoxed.

I didn't do so well when trying to play the apologist in terms of free will, I just don't get their arguments there quite as well as I should.

I do want to thank Dave for hosting and having me on.  He does a TON of these hangouts and they're a good time, so check out his website and his YouTube channel.

There was a funny aside from all this.  I actually got on the Hangout all early to talk to Dave, prepped with a healthy glass of wine, and when I saw how messy my basement was with my wife making Halloween costumes, I was going to hang up a blanket to hide the basement. Well doing that, I moved over a empty DVD case, which then fell over when I turned around and completely shattered the glass my wine was in. 

I was lucky that this was early, I ended up ruining my keyboard and had to act fast to get the glass and wine cleaned up in about a 10 foot radius around everything.  I'm just lucky the wine didn't really get into my gaming computer and the server that sits right underneath it.  Dave probably got a good chuckle at the level of cursing going on after getting over the shock. :P 

Debate Review: Justin Schieber vs. Max Andrews

If you're like me then you probably already subscribe to the Reasonable Doubts Podcast and you've seen the latest RD Extra episode which is a scripted audio debate between Justin Schieber and Max Andrews.

If you haven't already I highly recommend giving it a listen, but be warned - you will have to do a lot of work to follow these two.

I wanted to put out a few of my thoughts on the whole thing.