For this Christmas Eve, I repost my 2013 Reasonable Doubts debate on the virgin birth with Jonathan Pearce. This debate was prerecorded and as a result, it doesn’t have the same crackle as a live debate (the heated repartee; the gotcha moments; the laughter and applause of a fired-up audience). On the upside, being scripted and […]
Jonathan Pearce
The Loftus Apologists
Thus far I have written 13+ articles carefully documenting the errors in John Loftus’ book Why I Became an Atheist. I only decided to review the book after he had publicly criticized me for two years for not having read it. The irony is that if I had criticized the book in a short review, […]
“That says it all for me!” Free thinkers who are the enemies of free thought
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 […]
Atheism, apologetics, and the revealing off-hand comment
In my article “Russell Blackford, the Vacuous Atheist Critic” I offered a response to Russell Blackford, the, er, vacuous atheist critic. I was responding not to a book or essay or blog post that Blackford had written. Instead, I was responding to a Facebook comment. The fact that it was a Facebook comment (rather than […]
Finding Divine Signs: A response to Jonathan Pearce
In chapter 17 of God or Godless I argue “God best explains the miracles in people’s lives.” It should be stressed by “miracle” I don’t mean “a violation of natural law” or “an event with no secondary cause” or anything else of that sort. Rather, I mean something like this: that for a subset of […]
Like two ships passing in the night … Jonathan Pearce’s abortive rebuttal
A couple weeks ago Jonathan MS Pearce asked me to provide a short statement of belief for a new series he was initiating called “Why I am a Christian” which was inspired by my “Why they don’t believe” series. So I obliged and Jonathan posted it here. Take a look, read my statement and Jonathan’s […]
The kalam cosmological argument and libertarian free will (Part 2)
For part 1 click here. (Warning: if you haven’t read part 1 yet then you should or part 2 won’t make much sense.) After thinking about the issue a bit more I decided there is a simpler and more elegant way to demonstrate that there is no incompatibility between the first premise of the kalam […]
The kalam cosmological argument and libertarian free will
Jonathan Pearce made a comment in the discussion thread to “God or Godless and a Tippling Philosopher (Part 2)” which caught my attention. He said: “if you ascribe to the Kalam cosmological argument AND believe in free will, one refutes the other, since free will implies ex nihilo creation (or a causal chain), so there […]
A tippling-too-much philosopher? A response to Jonathan Pearce
Jonathan Pearce offers a reply to my reply to his review (this is getting complicated) here. So let this current article be my reply to his reply to my reply to his review. Jonathan writes: “The rebuttal [of each debate] was too short. Although this sounds like a contradiction since I admire its brevity…” It’s […]
God or Godless and a Tippling Philosopher (Part 2)
Let’s carry on with Jonathan Pearce (aka a Tippling Philosopher) and his review of God or Godless. Jonathan writes: “The basis of Randal’s argument is the ontological argument. In other words, he has rational, epistemic right to believe that a maximal God exists.” First off, I don’t have a single basis of argument. Second, the […]
God or Godless and a tippling philosopher (Part 1)
Last week Jonathan Pearce, the “Tippling Philosopher” blogger, reviewed God or Godless here. I was unable to offer a response at the time since I was out of country. But better late than never. Jonathan appreciated the brevity and concision of the book as well as the eclectic range of topics. However, he thought the concluding statements, […]
A Debate on the Nativity for Christmas
Today the “Reasonable Doubts” podcast released a one hour forty minute debate between Jonathan Pearce and myself on the historical reliability of the nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke. The debate consists of twenty minute opening statements, fifteen minute rebuttals, seven minute rebuttals, five minute rebuttals, and two minute closing statements. Whew! I get tired […]
