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Randal Rauser

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Archives for February 2012

Believers and skeptics and lots of baloney

February 29, 2012 by Randal

Fifteen years ago when I lived in Vancouver I used to frequent a sandwich shop in Port Kells that was famous for its massive sub sandwiches. I remember in particular the breathtakingly generous slabs of baloney. I thought of that shop, and its endless supply of baloney, as I read John Loftus’ latest reply to my […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, epistemology, faith, John W. Loftus, reason, theism

Would intelligent aliens present a problem for Christianity?

February 27, 2012 by Randal

Jeff commented on my recent article “Should you call out Gouranga?” and in doing so offered a helpful basis to kickstart our discussion of exotheology. He is of the opinion that it is a problem to Christian theology if there are “intelligent species in the cosmos other than humans” for as he says “then we’re left […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: alien, ETI, exotheology, God, SETI

Should you have faith in John W. Loftus?

February 25, 2012 by Randal

Yesterday I received an email from my co-author (God or Godless, Baker, 2013), atheist John W. Loftus. He said in the email “I wrote something with you in mind” and then provided a link to the following article in his blog: Faith is an Irrational Leap over the Probabilities Good ole’ John. Let’s go to the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, evidence, faith, John W. Loftus, reason, theism

From a field of dreams to a storm shelter of dread: A Review of “Take Shelter”

February 25, 2012 by Randal

One day Ray Kinsella heard a voice in his cornfield, “If you build it, he will come.” And so begins the great American feel good story of a struggling farmer who builds a baseball diamond in his backyard. But what if Ray was waiting not for the arrival of a mysterious man but rather of a […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Jeff Nichols, Take Shelter

One of these causes is not like the others: Getting behind the personal incredulity of ‘skeptics’

February 24, 2012 by Randal

Why is it, I wondered, that the minute you point out that agent casuation is a perfectly familiar concept (it provides a fine explanation of the sentence you’re reading, for example) and then add that it is thus in principle a concept worth considering as an explanation of the universe’s existence, some people make the leap […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: agent causation, atheism, cosmological argument, event causation, plausibility structure, skepticism

Why is it that when you mention God somebody always mentions leprechauns?

February 24, 2012 by Randal

It never fails. Mention God within the context of a sufficiently broad audience and somebody will raise the issue of leprechauns. I have lamented this unfortunate phenomenon in the past. This time the guilty party is a stalwart reader, Ray Ingles, who in response to my previous article on God and agent causation observes: “Some types […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: God; leprechaun; theism

God and other not so strange causes

February 23, 2012 by Randal

It is not uncommon in dialogues with atheists to hear the claim that invoking God as an explanation is something strange and totally foreign to experience. I call this the “foreign to experience objection” or F-TEO for short. The objection is that God is some kind of out of this world explanation (figuratively and literally I […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: agent causation, atheism, creation, event causation, plausibility, theism

More on Mormons, atheism and aliens

February 22, 2012 by Randal

There has been some incredulity toward my claim that Mormons are really atheists. But that is not very surprising. As I have pointed out, the professional class in most fields of discourse holds definitions of terms that differ substantially from views widely held in the general population. Ask Joe the Plumber to define “free action”, “mind” and […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: alien, atheism, Contact, Ellie Arroway, ET, Mormonism, theism

Why Mormons are probably atheists

February 22, 2012 by Randal

davidstarlingm has asked how the definitions that I provided for “God” and “theism” would relate to Mormonism: “where do the various flavors of polytheism, including Mormonism, fall into your definition? The Mormon Elohim is not the ultimate agent cause of everything that exists, as he is both contingent on a higher entity (the creator of […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, Mormonism, theism

Atheists who don’t know what they don’t believe in

February 21, 2012 by Randal

I regularly dialogue with people who, though they identify themselves as “atheists”, do not have a clear sense of how God — that which they purportedly don’t believe in — should be defined. To be sure, they are able to say in a piecemeal fashion “I don’t believe in Yahweh, Thor or Allah…” but they can’t get […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, theism

Kill some wolves before you die: A review of “The Grey” (Part 2)

February 20, 2012 by Randal

Warning: Spoiler(s) ahead. (Not really bad spoilers as would be the case if I told you that Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) in “The Sixth Sense” is really a ghost who doesn’t know he’s a ghost. That’d be a wicked spoiler. The “spoilers” here are really nothing more than the untimely revelation of plot points.) […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, Bertrand Russell, existentialism, Liam Neeson, nihilism, The Grey

Should you take the meteorite impact coverage?

February 19, 2012 by Randal

In response to my illustration of the alien spaceship impact coverage Walter commented: “as far as insurance goes I opted out of alien spacecraft impact coverage and went for meteor and falling satellite coverage instead.” This got me thinking: what is the likelihood of dying from the impact of a meteorite? After some research I […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: insurance, statistics

From Mormon proxy baptism to alien spaceship impact coverage … and beyond!

February 18, 2012 by Randal

Sadly, nobody chose to engage with my Pascalian defense of the Mormon practice of baptizing for the dead. I’ll return to that point at the end of this article. However, let me begin by giving you another illustration. Mormon proxy baptism and alien spaceship impact coverage Imagine that when you buy house insurance the insurance […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Elie Wiesel, Judaism, Mormon, proxy baptism

Kill some wolves before you die: A review of “The Grey” (Part 1)

February 17, 2012 by Randal

The moment I saw the trailer for “The Grey” I wept testosterone tears. Liam Neeson stranded in the Alaskan wilderness bare-knuckling it with rabid wolves? This made John Rambo’s escapades in “First Blood” look like “Kindergarten Cop” by comparison. But there were two other factors that drew me inexorably to the theatre. Factor one: the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Liam Neeson, The Grey

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