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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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free thought

Why is it that folks who call themselves “free thinkers” tend to think alike?

October 8, 2017 by Randal

It’s true! The next time you meet an (American) free thinker ask them some questions. Chances are: They support Democrats, gun control, LGBT rights, elective abortion access, the science on climate change, stem cell research, and single payer healthcare. They do not support the Republican party, a tax exempt status for organized religion, home schooling, […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: free thought

Life is a Highway: Dreams of the Free Thinker

December 3, 2016 by Randal

I’m not a fan of the practice whereby secularists and atheists refer to themselves as “free thinkers”. The common refrain from self-described free thinkers is that they are unencumbered by dogma and can simply follow the light of reason. “You’ve locked yourself up in your Christian beliefs!” they retort. “Set aside all your beliefs and follow the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, Bill Clinton, free thought, secularism

The Myth of the Free Thought Parent

August 18, 2015 by Randal

Some years ago while I was delivering a lecture on faith and reason at a secular university, I informed my audience that I had taught the Apostles’ Creed to my daughter, who was four or five at the time. I then noted that as a family we recited the creed every day during our family […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, critical thinking, free thought, rationality, skepticism, worldview

The delusion of the non-creedal atheist

September 8, 2014 by Randal

Many atheists like to present themselves as “free thinkers”, unencumbered by ideology, confession or creed, in contrast to their religionist neighbors. Consider, for example, the venerable organization American Atheists which was founded way back in 1963 to defend the civil liberties of atheists. Under the section of their website titled “Aims and Purposes” the organization defines “atheism” as […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: American Atheists, atheism, free thought, ideology, worldview

Atheism, free thought, and Bible burning

March 13, 2014 by Randal

The other day I posted an interview with the apologist and philosopher Matthew Flannagan. The interview consisted of a forty-five minute conversation in which Matt developed a thoughtful and nuanced perspective on the nexus between biblical hermeneutics, metaethics, and normative ethics. The Atheist Missionary responded in the comment thread. While he declined to offer any […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, free society, free thought, The atheist missionary, theism

“That says it all for me!” Free thinkers who are the enemies of free thought

January 26, 2014 by Randal

Time and again I have encountered the inexplicably dull lack of awareness that so-called “skeptical free thinkers” have about their own double standards. As a case in point consider this comment posted just today in the thread to my article “The kalam cosmological argument and libertarian free will“. The comment comes from blogger Jonathan MS Pearce […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, Daniel Dennett, free thought, Jonathan Pearce, skepticism

Materialist epiphanies, reductive delusions

November 14, 2013 by Randal

I was only a few pages into John Allen Paulos’ book Irreligion: A mathematician explains why the arguments for God just don’t add up (New York: Hill and Wang, 2008) when I came across Paulos’ extraordinary description of his childhood conversion to “materialism”. He writes: “if there is an inborn disposition to materialism (in the sense […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, free thought, materialism, naturalism, skepticism

Debriefing The Darwin Fundamentalists

August 7, 2013 by Randal

Well I must say, my article on “The Darwinian Fundamentalists” accomplished just what I expected (if not hoped) it would by illustrating that “free thinkers” have their taboo and verboten subjects as surely as do anybody else. Poor Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini found that out the hard way. (So, by the way, did Mr. Darwin himself.) In the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, free thought, skepticism

4. The Loftus Rauser Road Trip: Conversations on God (Part 1)

June 17, 2013 by Randal

On June 3, 2013 while standing on a rainy sidewalk outside Renfrew Baptist Church in Calgary, Alberta, I met John Loftus for the first time. Folks are surprised to learn that prior to that day I had never spoke on the phone with John, much less met him in person, and yet we had written […]

Filed Under: Podcast, Podcast-The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: apologetics, atheism, Christianity, free thought, God or Godless, John Loftus, skepticism, theism

‘Dawkins was Wrong.’ Come on, say it. Say it!

May 20, 2011 by Randal

For those of you who, like me, were raised on a diet of “Happy Days” back in the seventies you will remember that the Fonz could not say “I was wrong”. Whenever he was expected to he would mumble and stutter and stumble over his admission, much to the delight of the viewing audience. I […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, authoritarianism, empiricism, free thought, Richard Dawkins, secularism, self-referential defeat

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