This post is prompted by the following comment and question from Emilie: You’ve asked John to explain his criteria for justification. Were he to do that, I would imagine that you would have some criticisms. Could you tell us what your criteria for justification are? I’d like to understand from what perspective your criticisms might […]
reason
Believers and skeptics and lots of baloney
Fifteen years ago when I lived in Vancouver I used to frequent a sandwich shop in Port Kells that was famous for its massive sub sandwiches. I remember in particular the breathtakingly generous slabs of baloney. I thought of that shop, and its endless supply of baloney, as I read John Loftus’ latest reply to my […]
Should you have faith in John W. Loftus?
Yesterday I received an email from my co-author (God or Godless, Baker, 2013), atheist John W. Loftus. He said in the email “I wrote something with you in mind” and then provided a link to the following article in his blog: Faith is an Irrational Leap over the Probabilities Good ole’ John. Let’s go to the […]
Unreasonable Reason, or where is Jag Pointing?
In the comments for my essay “Please rescue me lest I drown: On the fear of losing faith” Jag commented: “I would say the reasonable person is the one who requires a threshold of evidential and logical support which is in proportion to the importance of the proposition under consideration. Authority opinion can be a […]
Playing on emotions or reasoning from them?
Like most kids I grew up playing war with toy guns. And I had the perfect setting for it too: our property included a large ravine that provided the ideal wild backdrop for an extended battle. And so my friends and I spent many Saturday afternoons engaged in military operations weaving in and out of the Ponderosa […]
Please rescue me lest I drown: On the fear of losing faith
The following is an essay I wrote on three different kinds of fears that keep Christians from examining their faith. Please rescue me with a strong hand to deliver from these waters of doubt lest I drown Bill Mallonee, “Dreamcoat” Some years ago a seminary student came to me with a question. She had […]
God and Wonderdad: A final discussion of antitheism
I thought I’d be done with antitheism by now but some people insist on holding on to bad ideas. So I’m going to close off this discussion with an illustration which gets to the irrational, emotional heart of antitheism. Ollie is a ten year old orphan living in an orphanage in London. He was found as a […]
Economists who buy lottery tickets: Reflections on Less Wrong
Faithful reader Robert asked me to respond to an article by Eliezer Yudkowsky of “Less Wrong” called “Outside the Laboratory.” The article deals with the rationality (and irrationality) of scientists. Robert Gressis added that he too would like to see my response, though “it seems like a massive undertaking.” Always up for a challenge, I […]
How should we interpret the religious skepticism of elite scientists?
There have been many surveys of the religious belief (or lack thereof) of scientists. While certain factors vary, the overall pattern is strikingly consistent: scientists on the whole are less likely to be religious than the general population. And elite scientists (e.g. members of the NAS or Royal Society; nobel laureates, etc.) are less likely to […]
Something better than doubt
Tim Bulkeley posed an important question in response to my doubts about doubt: “How is doubt (which you did not define) related to asking for argument and/or evidence? For I’d say that even for such an outrageously obvious statement as the one you offered it is good to ask for the arguments and evidence that […]
Is doubt good? Is skepticism a virtue?
While reading through Michael Shermer’s enjoyable book How We Believe: Science, Skepticism and the Search for God (New York: Henry Holt, 2000) I came across the following passage: “Doubt is good. Questioning belief is healthy. Skepticism is okay. It is more than okay, in fact. Skepticism is a virtue and science is a valuable tool […]
Beliefs that are forever justified?
El Bryan Libre takes issue with my critique of William Lane Craig. He writes “I think the doubt he’s talking about is strictly whether Christianity (or even just theism) is true.” “Out of the different ways you could have interpreted him what made you choose to go with the most negative (and easiest to knock […]
Can we rationally believe in an atonement we don’t understand?
Having surveyed Ken Pulliam’s discussion of the PST, I have now been asked by Robert: “How do the other theories fare? I’m guessing they have problems too, since men like Luther and Calvin rejected them in favor of PST.” First off, Luther actually is associated with the Christus Victor model rather than PST, though Calvin […]
Has Stephen Law been sucked into an intellectual black hole? A Review of Law’s “Believing Bullshit”
Stephen Law. Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole. Prometheus, 2011, 271 pp. ISBN: 978-1-61614-411-1. In the vein of Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World (Ballantine, 1997) and Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things (Holt, 2002), comes this new book by Stephen Law, senior lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop […]
