This is a sermon I recorded for a local church in our time of coronavirus home-church. In the sermon, I argue that Jesus was centrally concerned with evidence to support his claims and this bequeathed to the church a strong emphasis on faith that is grounded on evidence as exemplified in the Apostle Paul and […]
evidence
A Quick Word on the Total Evidence for Theism
Occasionally, I hear people make claims about how the “total evidence” does or does not support theism. Those people are incorrect: *nobody* has considered all the expansive evidence for/against that claim. Nor is it feasible that any person ever will. The total evidence includes not only thousands of publicly available arguments and lines of evidence […]
“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 […]
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 […]
Do ID theorists have an agenda? And does it matter if they do?
The discussion thread for my article “Intelligent Design Explanations are not Science Stoppers” includes a spirited exchange with RonH. One point of disagreement that quickly emerged in our interaction concerned the relevance of the background beliefs and intentions of intelligent design advocates in assessing the arguments for intelligent design. RonH was keen to link intelligent design to the […]
Exercises in Missing the Point: A Response to Counter Apologist’s Scorched Earth Review
I recently preached a sermon on faith and evidence and while it received a warm reception in the comments section of my blog, apparently the feelings were not universal: an absolutely scathing review was posted just today by the generally amiable Counter Apologist (henceforth CA). How scathing? Consider his opening (f-bomb and all). CA says of my sermon: “It […]
Does Faith Make Sense? A Sermon on Christianity and Evidence
This is a sermon I preached yesterday at McKernan Baptist Church in Edmonton as part of their “Questions from the Neighborhood?” series. At the beginning I note that the most common objection I’ve encountered toward Christianity concerns the problem of evil. But the second most common objection is that Christianity demands faith at the expense […]
Why you can’t say the total evidence supports (or does not support) Christianity
This article offers a response to a comment posted by Jeff Lowder. (Click on the link to get the comment and the context in which it occurs. I shan’t bother to rehash that background info here.) To be more accurate, this article uses Lowder’s comment as a springboard to a further conversation. What caught my […]
Do theists need a proof for God to be rational? A response to Dan Barker
Over the last few days I’ve been reading through Dan Barker’s book Godless. I thought it only fair to do so after writing a critique of a few sentences. I plan to write a review of the book in the next week or so. Not to give things away, but I can say both that the […]
The Berenstain Conspiracy and beyond…
Like many other people, I grew up reading The Berenstein Bears. Or so I thought. However, it turns out that the series (and the bear family’s surname) is spelled Berenstain. Sounds suspicious to me. How do you explain a persistent, collective group memory that Berenstain is really Berenstein? The son of the authors insists that […]
Yahweh vs. Thor
Going through my Twitter feed this morning I saw the following retweet via Secular Outpost: “Atheism does not require certainty. But we can be as certain the Christian god does not exist as Christians are that Thor does not exist.” I assume that the original tweeter was intending to make a claim like this: “Evidence […]
67. Justin Schieber on rationality and religious disagreement
On March 7th and 8th of 2015, I had the privilege of taking the stage with atheist debater and broadcaster Justin Schieber for two events, a debate at the University of Alberta and a dialogue at Taylor Seminary. The following morning, March 9th, I drove Justin to the airport in Calgary. The three hour drive provided the rich opportunity for us […]
“I just have faith?” How atheists go wrong in understanding the concept of faith
This week Justin Brierley read some of the many responses to last week’s debate between Tim McGrew and Peter Boghossian. One of those responses caught my attention and I’m going to address it here. The response was from an atheist who reported that in his experience when he asks Christians for evidence for their beliefs, […]
How rational is atheist disbelief?
In “God, Christianity, and the Bad Hyundai Objection” I noted that people often grant far more weight to personal anecdotal experiences than an objective assessment of the evidence. One bad experience with a particular car can tarnish an entire brand, even if the evidence considered objectively supports the overall quality of that brand of cars. […]
