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Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

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The Tentative Apologist

Atheism and Antitheism

January 6, 2021 by Randal

In this article, I continue my survey of concepts commonly associated with atheism by considering anti-theism. For the previous installment on atheism and secularism, click here. For the last fifteen years or so, the public face of atheism has been synonymous with the new atheism of people like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late […]

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

Is the problem of evil less of a problem if evil is not a thing?

January 3, 2021 by Randal

Some theists attempt to lessen the problem of evil by arguing that evil has no independent ontological existence: instead, it is merely the absence of good. Let’s consider that defense for a moment by trying out the logic in an analogous case. Imagine that Mr. and Mrs. Jones leave town for the weekend and they […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: problem of evil, theodicy

Steelmanning Run Amok

January 2, 2021 by Randal

The other day, I posted an article on the proper application of the Strawman Fallacy. So I thought it would make sense to start off the new year with a companion article addressing steelmanning. While strawmanning is an informal fallacy that involves intentionally critiquing the weaker versions of a position while ignoring the stronger versions, […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: charitable interpretation fallacy, fallacy, steelmanning

Militant Agnosticism

December 29, 2020 by Randal

Michael Shermer describes his own disbelief in God as follows: “I once saw a bumper sticker that read ‘Militant Agnostic: I don’t know and You Don’t Either.’ This is my position on God’s existence: I don’t know and you don’t either.”[1] Shermer is right to call that position “militant”. To claim that nobody can know […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: agnosticism, Michael Shermer

Before You Accuse Somebody of the Strawman Fallacy

December 28, 2020 by Randal

You don’t accuse somebody of lying just because they said something that is false. The accusation of lying is only justified if you have good evidence that they knew that what they were saying is false at the time that they said it and that they said it with the intention of persuading someone else […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: informal logic, strawman

My New Biblical Violence Book

December 27, 2020 by Randal

I’ve been thinking about the problem of biblical violence since I wrote a critique of Paul Copan in 2008 (published in 2009). Over the last twelve years, I delievered a conference paper on the topic, I have devoted chapters to the imprecatory psalms and violence of Torah in my books What’s So Confusing About Grace? and Conversations with […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: biblical violence

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

December 25, 2020 by Randal

Merry Christmas, everyone! Here is the introduction to the chapter on incarnation in my 2008 book Faith Lacking Understanding. The excerpt invites Christians to rediscover the magic and mystery of incarnation by way of a celebrated children’s story. In her delightful children’s classic The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Barbara Robinson tells the story of how the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Christmas, Faith lacking understanding, incarnation

Is the Christian God Worthy of Worship? A Debate with Dan Barker

December 22, 2020 by Randal

Dan Barker is a former fundamentalist preacher-turned-atheist, author of many books including Godless and God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction, and co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. In this informal from December 22 2020, we addressed the question “Is the Christian God Worthy of Worship?”

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, biblical violence, Dan Barker

Atheist Polemic for Pastor Dan: A Review of God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction

December 21, 2020 by Randal

Dan Barker. God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction. New York: Sterling, 2016. At the beginning of chapter 2 of his bestselling book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins infamously describes God as “jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: biblical violence, Dan Barker, new atheism, review

Atheism and Secularism

December 19, 2020 by Randal

This article continues my survey of ideas commonly associated with atheism. The previous installment considered the relationship between atheism and freethought. In this article, we consider the relationship between atheism and secularism. There is no doubt that atheism is often closely associated with secularism such that self-identified atheists are often committed to the furtherance of […]

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

If You Defend Ravi Zacharias and Hucksters Like Him, You are Part of the Problem

December 16, 2020 by Randal

This morning, I received a comment on my February 2019 article “Christians cannot sit on the fence concerning Ravi Zacharias.” It reminded me that even with the most recent shocking revelations about Ravi sexually abusing young women at his massage parlours (see here and here), there will always be people willing to defend the man […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: predator, Ravi Zacharias, sexual predator, truth

How Not to Read the Bible: Lessons from Footloose

December 14, 2020 by Randal

In this video, I consider the lamentable Bible reading of Ren McCormack (Kevin Bacon) as he uses biblical passages out of context as a pretext to get the town to lift their ban on school dances. All from the classic 1984 teen movie Footloose.

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, Footloose, hermeneutics, prooftexting

The Awfulness of Franklin Graham in a Single Tweet

December 12, 2020 by Randal

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Donald Trump, evangelicalism, Franklin Graham, hypocrisy

Atheists and Free-Thinkers: Are they the same thing?

December 11, 2020 by Randal

In this article, I continue my series on atheism. In the previous installment, we looked at the relationship between atheism and scientism. In this installment, we consider the relationship between atheism and free-thought. Note, this article is in part based on my article “The Myth of the Free-thought Parent.” Next, we turn to free-thought, a […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist

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