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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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village atheism

When atheists compare God to Santa Claus, leprechauns, and flying spaghetti monsters

July 2, 2020 by Randal

In this video, I survey five rhetorical categories of comparison that village atheists/new atheists make with belief in God. And I explain why each one of them is little more than an ignorant attempt to poison the well.

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Flying Spaghetti Monster, new atheism, parody, Santa Claus, satire, village atheism

On Richard Dawkins and His Many Gods

September 29, 2019 by Randal

I just set out to tweet on Richard Dawkins’ new book Outgrowing God. My quick comment became several tweets and I decided to repost those tweets here. And so, without further ado: The first chapter of Richard Dawkins’ new anti-religious screed is titled “So many gods!” And it points out that — wait for it […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: apologetics, atheism, Richard Dawkins, village atheism

God and the Tooth Fairy

July 17, 2019 by Randal

Two days ago, I posted the following tweet: “Every time I hear an atheist compare belief in God to belief in the ‘tooth fairy’ I get more evidence for my observation that atheists don’t even understand what they are rejecting.” The tweet elicited several responses. Predictably, those included responses that defended the analogy by insisting […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, God, tooth fairy, village atheism

God sacrificed himself to himself, blah blah blah

December 20, 2016 by Randal

Here’s another retweet from Jeff Lowder at Secular Outpost. (And keep in mind that retweeting is not endorsing.) This one perfectly illustrates the problem I highlighted in my previous article “On Scientific (and Philosophical and Theological) Ignorance“: https://twitter.com/LindaBeatty/status/806997788768620548 This is one of the more persistent atheist memes that trade on bracing theological ignorance. Indeed, I […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atonement, village atheism

Village Atheism and Appalachian Snake Handlers

December 1, 2016 by Randal

There are two billion Christians on earth. And in the wilds of Appalachia a handful of those Christians form a tiny Pentecostal sect known as the Appalachian Snake Handlers. Given the minuscule size and fringe nature of the group, they don’t tend to come up in regular conversation. Indeed, the only time I ever hear about […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Appalachian Snake Handlers, village atheism

One person’s wrestling with tales of mass murder is another person’s belly laugh

April 19, 2014 by Randal

I owe this quote to the prolific Edward T Babinski who commented in response to my article “The Bible and Violence: A Biblical Bibliography“: “Randal, One person’s ‘wrestling’ with tales of mass murder in their ‘holy book’ is another person’s belly laugh.” I really enjoyed this quote because it concisely summarizes a village atheist (or village […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: culture, perspectivalism, rationality, reason, village atheism

Why more atheists need to speak out against village atheism

April 7, 2014 by Randal

Over the last five years that I have been blogging I have noted the extensive presence of village atheism within the infidel blogosphere. While the blogosphere also has its share of “village Christians”, what is particularly ironic about the proliferation of village atheism is the fact that the online atheist/skeptic community persistently tries to brand […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, skepticism, village atheism

John Loftus defends Boghossian’s “rhetoric” because the man has found “the truth”

February 20, 2014 by Randal

Imagine that a Christian — let’s call him “Pastor Bob Gossian” — were to write an evangelistic manual on how to convert atheists to “the Truth” titled A Manual for Creating Christians. And then imagine that an atheist were to write a review in which he critiqued the definitions Bob Gossian offers for terms like […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: A Manual for Creating Atheists, evangelism, fundamentalism, John Loftus, Peter Boghossian, rhetoric, village atheism

Leprechauns and God

July 1, 2011 by Randal

The village atheist rejection of God is hugely dependent on an argument from personal incredulity. Such was the essence of Curt Cameron’s interesting leprechaun response to my analysis of protest atheism.  The logical structure of these “arguments” is rarely if ever articulated explicitly. But so far as I can see the argument proceeds like this: (1) The idea that p’s […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, God, personal incredulity argument, skepticism, theism, village atheism

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