Archive: October, 2010
Torture Porn and Human Nature: An All Hallow’s Eve Meditation
This weekend “Saw 3-D” came out on top at the box office. No surprise. It is a well established horror film franchise. I’ve never seen any of the Saw films, but I get the general idea: line people up to be tortured and killed in a series of grisly, sadistic and extraordinarily creative ways. The Saw [...]
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Rape as objectively evil
In my last post I stated that rape is objectively evil and any worldview that cannot count for this fact suffers accordingly. Alexander responded with a refreshing dose of dramatic bravado: “Not so, Randal Rauser! According to Randy Thornhill, rape is actually an evolution of a ‘genetically advantageous behavioral adaptation’ and, in that context, not inherently evil.” This [...]
Read moreCan rape be objectively wrong?
The problem of evil is often presented to Christians as the objection to the existence of God. Sometimes it is presented as a logical problem – the existence of an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God is logically inconsistent with the existence of evil — but more often these days it is presented as a matter of probabilities — [...]
Read moreMens Paired Figure Skating and Atheism
Jerry Rivard writes in the blog to offer a reprimand: “Much has been said on this blog and at CP about naturalism being the inevitable conclusion that follows atheism. Nonsense! A person can certainly believe that there are no gods, but that there are ghosts, for example. They may have an inconsistent world view as [...]
Read moreWhen the scientific method comes to town
Randal (from an earlier post): “So what is naturalism? Is it a claim that only a particular kind of knowledge can be had (i.e. scientific)?” Brenda: “Yes. If you have another method besides the scientific method for determining objective facts about the world we’d love to heard about it.” Whoa! Now this is an interesting [...]
Read moreAtheists in natural glass houses
Atheists living in their “100 percent natural” glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. But alas, when many insist they don’t live in such a house, or when they can’t see the glass walls hemming them in on every side, I suppose it’s difficult to persuade them that they shouldn’t hurl that hunk of granite in their [...]
Read moreFrom typing on a keyboard to the soul
I am going to be getting back to The Christian Delusion next week, but you see this week I am teaching a 1 week intensive course in systematic theology so I’m trying to find time merely for something short and delightful for y’all. (1 week intensive courses are, for the professor, the closest equivalent of [...]
Read moreExtraordinary cars require extraordinary acceleration
Silverbullet sternly informs me: “We ask that you support extraordinary claims with extraordinary evidence.” This claim is so familiar, indeed, well-worn, that it is like putting on a pair of old 501 jeans. The only problem is … it doesn’t fit very well. And why is that? What’s wrong with this delicate and eminently reasonable demand for [...]
Read morePowerpoint Slides
This section includes PDF versions of Powerpoint presentations/lectures. Lecture Notes on the Imprecatory Psalms (Click title to view/download PDF)
Read moreNaturalism and the ole’ swimming hole
Picture yourself taking your kids to the community pool with your favorite yellow inner tube when your friend retorts: “Community pool? That’s disgusting! Do you know what they have in that water? Crap and pee and barf, all floating around in particles too small to see.” Taken aback at this rather bold affront, you ask your friend: “So [...]
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