This morning, somebody commented on my 2016 article “On Scientific (and Philosophical and Theological) Ignorance.” “Just some guy” opined: “Your philosophy counter-‘argument’ is flawed because philosophy doesn’t mean anything if it can’t be demonstrated in reality.” (source) Alas, “Just some guy” seems not to be aware that the statement “philosophy doesn’t mean anything if it […]
epistemology
Is doubt virtuous? Is certainty arrogant?
I just read a Twitter profile that declares: “I believe doubt is a virtue that can lead to humility and certainty can lead to arrogance.” It’s the profile of Pinecreek Doug who just interviewed me. And I’d say, sure, just so long as we recognize that doubt can also lead to arrogance and certainty to […]
Do I have an anything goes epistemology? A response to my critic
A long-time commenter at my blog, Jeff Kesterson, asked me to take a look at his 2018 article “An Overview of the Problem of Evil | Denying the Problem: Reformed Epistemology.” The article offers a critique of reformed epistemology and specifically Alvin Plantinga and yours truly. I’m not going to recap the argument here — […]
“There is insufficient evidence to warrant belief.” Eh?
This morning, I noticed an exchange between Angry Grasshopper and Ron H. on my blog regarding the nature of evidence for theism. I have excerpted the relevant bits below, but you can read the fuller exchange starting here. After that, I’ll offer my own comments. Angry Grasshopper: “I don’t reject ‘mere’ theism because it doesn’t […]
How do you know you’re not dreaming?
Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou once dreamed he was a butterfly. When he woke, he observed, “Am I a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly who dreams it is a man?” And so, the epistemological question is this: how do we know that reality is not a dream? I’m going to offer […]
Tom Jump says it is not possible to know that God exists. And I reply.
Back in November 2018, I did an interview with atheist YouTuber Tom Jump. Today, we followed that up with a second interview/exchange/dialogue in which Tom presented his skeptical epistemology while I offered a reply. While Tom and I don’t agree on much in terms of epistemology, we do agree on the value of friendly exchanges […]
Sweeping agnostic claims are anything but humble … or wise
Yesterday, The Atheist Missionary posted the following comment on my blog in which he declared his commitment to metaphysical agnosticism: “Agnosticism with respect to metaphysical truths is not only the ‘smart’ position, it’s the only logical conclusion. That is why the only thing I believe with religious certainty is that there are dimensions, truths and […]
The Evidential Burdens of Atheism
Over the years, I’ve met many self-described atheists who insist that they do not need to justify their atheism. They say things like this: “If you’re going to make a claim about what exists, it needs to be justified.” By implication, if you make a claim about what does not exist, you are somehow exempted […]
A Conversation with Catholic Apologist Trent Horn: Part 1 (The Magisterium)
Trent Horn is one of my favorite Catholic apologists. You know what? Scratch that, he’s one of my favorite apologists, period. You can visit him online at his website, and you should definitely check out his excellent podcast The Counsel of Trent, and you should obviously check out his books on Amazon. And now you should also […]
The Problem of Religious Skeptics Singling out Religious Beliefs for Criticism
I regularly encounter religious skeptics who single out religious beliefs as presenting some particular epistemological problem. The catalyst for this article is one of those opinions which I read just this morning on Twitter. The skeptic writes: “Why do folks ”struggle” with religious beliefs? We happily let our other beliefs evolve as we go thru […]
The Meaning and Rationality of Faith: A Christian and Atheist Conversation
Christians and atheists often engage in heated debate over the rationality of faith. Unfortunately, those conversations tend to generate more heat than light, not least because the parties to the discussion often end up talking past one another. If we want to make real progress on debating the rationality of faith, we should begin by […]
Can a subjective, private religious experience be veridical?
It has been a long while since I engaged anything written by John Loftus. (Though I still think our book God or Godless is an excellent primer to the God debates.) But today I decided to provide a response to a brief new article he wrote titled “Subjective Private Religious Experiences Prove Nothing!” As I said, the article […]
Does the success of Christianity provide a prima facie reason to believe it is true?
Christianity is the largest religion on earth with approximately 2.2 billion adherents. Do you think the undeniable success of Christianity provides a prima facie reason to believe it is true? — The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) October 4, 2018 In this article, I’d like to offer a response to the 40 percent of respondents to my […]
On Spurious Attempts to Favor Naturalism over Theism
In this article, I want to consider a spurious attempt to favor naturalism over theism. To be clear, I don’t take issue with the general maxim in the meme posted below. What I do dispute is the facile attempt to favor naturalism over theism based on the maxim: In my rebuttal, I point out that if […]
