David Marshall & The Oppressed Faithless Disciples

A few days ago I put up a post questioning whether or not belief in specific religions could be rationally justified. I'm not completely sure that this argument works yet, and so I specifically requested rebuttals.


The first response I got comes from Christian apologist David Marshall.


Unfortunately for David, his response had quite the opposite effect - I'm now more convinced there's some teeth in the argument. Lets get into a number of misconceptions and problems with David's rebuttal.

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.

Are there rational justifications for belief in a specific religion?

I’ve had this idea percolating in my head for some time, and a Twitter interaction with Randal Rauser has forced me to finally put words down in support of it.

My thoughts are fairly ambitious as far as Counter Apologetics goes, though I’m not yet certain the argument will work.  So consider this a request for rebuttals. 

The idea is that jumping from mere theism to belief in a specific religion is not rationally justifiable. This concept isn’t necessarily new.  

Book Review: "An Atheist and a Christian Walk Into a Bar..."

“An Atheist and a Christian Walk Into a Bar..” is a collaborative work between atheist Justin Schieber and Christian theologian and apologist Randal Rauser. 

If you’re familiar with my work, you’ll know I’m a big fan of Justin’s work on the Reasonable Doubts Podcast and his new ventures in the Real Atheology YouTube channel which just transitioned into its own podcast.  I also happen to have a bit of a soft spot for Randal.  Randal is one of those apologists that strikes me as quite very honest about how arguments and the like work out, even if we disagree about the conclusions.  If I had to pick an apologist to go have beers with, Randal is one of the few I’d be happy to do so with. 

So those are my biases, coming in I happen to like both authors. Spoiler Alert: This is a positive review. 

I'm in a book again! "Did God Create the Universe from Nothing?" by Jonathan M.S. Pearce

I'm very proud to say that I contributed a chapter to another book by Jonathan Pearce and Dr. James East. 

This lovely book provides quite the response to the Kalam Cosmological Argument.  My contribution was related to Craig's inconsistencies in applying science to the philosophy of time, but Jonathan has an very broad set of objections to the argument.

It was even good enough to warrant a foreword by Jeffrey Jay Lowder, one of the OG's of Internet Atheism.

You can purchase a virtual or physical copy of the book here from Amazon. It definitely would make a nice stocking stuffer for any infidels this holiday season.

Responding to Tim Keller's "Making Sense of God" Talk

The other day one of my former pastors who I am still friends with posted the following video of Tim Keller giving a talk at Google to give an overview of his new book "Making Sense of God".  He specifically asked his non-believing friends if we'd like to have a discussion about it.

I obliged, but it ended up being a 1500 word response and I was pretty happy with it, so I've decided to post it here on my blog.

For reference, here's the video.  My response below the fold only covers the main talk, not the Q&A.

Countering the Moral Argument Part 2: Responding to William Lane Craig

Note: What follows is the script for my YouTube video on Countering the Moral Argument Pt 2.  Keep reading below for the transcript!

Once again I’m rather surprised to see that apologist William Lane Craig has deigned to respond to my videos again in his podcast.  What I am more surprised to see is how Craig could so blatantly either ignore my arguments entirely or misconstrue my objections when attempting his own response.  To be fair to Craig in some cases his misconception could be attributed to how I worded things, but in other cases he even states a position that I explicitly argued against in my video, without even mentioning the objections I made against that position. 

Since this is a counter-response, I’m including links in the description box to my original video and website where you can listen or read my arguments, as well as link to William Lane Craig’s website where you can download his podcast and give it a listen or re ad the transcript.

That said lets go through Craig’s responses to my objections to the moral argument.