Today, I’ve gotten into discussions with folks on Twitter about whether Karl Popper’s principle of falsification should be invoked to judge the value/veracity/legitimacy of theological theories. Things got going with my tweet in response to Counter Apologist. (Follow up on Twitter to see our full back-and-forth exchange.) It's interesting how many atheists assume without question […]
falsification
Should you be able to say when you wouldn’t be a Christian in order to be a Christian?
This morning, I posted the following as a tweet: Atheists often challenge me by asking the conditions under which I would reject the Bible as God’s Word, or say that God isn’t perfectly good or conclude that Christianity isn’t true. The assumption is that if I don’t provide those conditions, the faith I now have […]
Is Christianity falsifiable? Does it matter if it isn’t?
There is this all-too-common assumption among skeptics of religion that Christianity must somehow be “falsifiable” in order to be a legitimate interpretive framework for reality. The quick (and tempting) response is to say that Christianity is falsifiable: if there is no resurrected Jesus then there is no Christianity. However, many nominal Christians have continued in the […]
Are theological theories falsifiable?
There is a popular, but altogether mistaken idea that scientific theories differ from theological (or philosophical) ones in that the former can be falsified but the latter cannot. The popularity of this idea can perhaps be traced to the enduring influence of Antony Flew’s parable of the invisible gardener. But it’s flatly wrong. But the way […]
A Case Where I Spend WAY TOO MUCH Time Analyzing a Snide Atheist Meme
Here is a tweet from the folks at “Atheist Republic”. Call it a meme if you want. (Might as well since the word “meme” seems to apply to most anything that gets retweeted.) So here’s the meme: pic.twitter.com/AduwjnloUq — Atheist Republic (@AtheistRepublic) August 16, 2017 I’m not sure what definition of “bullshit” the folks at […]
Is evolution the easiest theory to disprove? A Response to Denis Lamoureux
Yesterday I posted my review of the new Zondervan book Four Views on The Historical Adam. One of the book’s contributors, Denis Lamoureux, offered a response. Despite the fact that I stated Lamoureux presented the strongest case, he didn’t seem very happy with the review and listed several points that he thought I got wrong. […]
Beavers, Beaver-like Creatures, and Ad hoc hypotheses
Ray Ingles asks: “Part of the point of the multiverse hypothesis is that explains the same things as a God’s supposed to, in an entirely different way. How do you pick between a God and a multiverse, anyway?” Ray, I’m really glad you asked. Let’s say that there are two boy scouts in the woods […]
Why “defeating naturalism” is harder said than done
The intrepid S1lverBullet posed a direct question to me: “what qualifies as a defeater to belief in Yawheh/Jesus/Holy Ghost? A logical impossibility? What, exactly?” Later he explained further what he was looking for: “I was asking what might qualify as a defeater? A defeater would be identified by what criteria? It seems that his [Randal’s] beliefs must […]
