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Randal Rauser

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Archives for October 2010

Torture Porn and Human Nature: An All Hallow’s Eve Meditation

October 31, 2010 by Randal

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 […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: evil, I spit on your grave, Roger Ebert, Saw 3-D, The Human Centipede, torture porn

Rape as objectively evil

October 31, 2010 by Randal

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 […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: evil, genocide, morality, rape, Romeo Dallaire, Rwanda, Sam Harris

Can rape be objectively wrong?

October 30, 2010 by Randal

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 — […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, ethics, moral objectivism, moral perception, naturalism, problem of evil

Mens Paired Figure Skating and Atheism

October 30, 2010 by Randal

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 […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: angels, atheism, naturalism, supernatural, worldview

When the scientific method comes to town

October 29, 2010 by Randal

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 […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, epistemology, naturalism, scientific method

Atheists in natural glass houses

October 28, 2010 by Randal

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 […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: agent causation, atheism, event causation, free will, libertarian, naturalism, worldview

From typing on a keyboard to the soul

October 27, 2010 by Randal

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 […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: free will, libertarianism, naturalism, soul, substance dualism

Extraordinary cars require extraordinary acceleration

October 27, 2010 by Randal

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 […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, epistemology, evidentialism, justification, naturalism, rationality, skepticism

Powerpoint Slides

October 26, 2010 by Randal

This section includes PDF versions of Powerpoint presentations/lectures. Lecture Notes on the Imprecatory Psalms (Click title to view/download PDF)

Filed Under: AV Menu item

Naturalism and the ole’ swimming hole

October 26, 2010 by Randal

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 […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: agnosticism, atheism, Christianity, evidence, naturalism

When atheists grow up and become naturalists

October 25, 2010 by Randal

A number of my readers are atheists, but only one is anatheist.net, and that’s James Tracy. In “What John Loftus has is a failure to communicate” James and I continued with the old faith as a starting point of thinking theme (my theme, to be more specific). When James refused to come out and affirm any form […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: anatheist.net, atheism, epistemology, faith, James Tracy, naturalism, rationality, theism

The Denigration of Civil Discourse: More lessons from John Loftus

October 24, 2010 by Randal

I am grateful to John Loftus for highlighting through vivid illustration the denigration of civil discourse that I lament in my forthcoming book You’re Not as Crazy as I Think (see the books section of this site). In the book I point out that those who espouse indoctrinational modes of thinking commonly dismiss the views […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: civil discourse, John Loftus, rhetoric, You're not as crazy as I think

How to avoid the question: Lessons from Loftus

October 23, 2010 by Randal

Every so often people provide challenges to our positions that we cannot seem to answer. So what are we to do? Concede the difficulty and work to revise or reject our position? Well we could do that, but nobody likes to eat crow. And we have our reputations to protect, don’t we? So I am […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, John Loftus, problem of evil, revelation, skepticism, theodicy

Facing my mortality in the elevator

October 21, 2010 by Randal

I just had an existential moment in an elevator. And no, it was not after viewing Shyamalan’s (producer) new film “Devil” (featuring a few people trapped in an elevator with the devil). So here’s the scene. I’m speaking in a conference at Calgary and as I was riding the elevator up after my morning breakfast a […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Cover of the Rolling Stone, Dr. Hook

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