Links and News — 21-Nov-11

Jeffery Jay Lowder | November 21, 2011

Moment of Zen

“Science vs. Faith Flowchart” @Unreasonable Faith
“Science vs Religion Sudoko” @Unreasonable Faith

Interactions Between Secular Outpost Authors and Theistic Blog Authors

Stephen Law:

“Stephen Law’s Incoherent ‘Evil God’” by Tom Gilson (@Thinking Christian)
Law’s initial response, followed by back-and-forth replies by Law, Gilson, and others.

Jeffery Jay Lowder:

“Reply to Wintery Knight’s Review of the Craig-Law Debate“: I posted this on 6-Oct-11, 2-3 days after submitting my feedbck on Wintery Knight’s blog and sending an email to Wintery Knight about it. It still hasn’t appeared over there.

Atheism

“The Argument from Locality” @Ebon Musings

[Editor’s Note (Lowder): The article sums up the argument this way: “The fact that all religions originated in one specific culture, at one specific time and place, points strongly to their being the product of that culture, time and place – and not the product of divine revelation.” I need to think about this argument before endorsing it, but I think it’s very interesting.]

“Proving God’s Existence is Impossible” by John Shook (@Center for Inquiry)

[Editor’s Note (Lowder): My initial, knee-jerk reaction to Shook’s argument was, “That’s much too strong of a claim.” It’s one thing to say that no one has “proved” God’s existence; it is quite another to say that it is impossible to do so. After giving his argument some thought, I can see his point but remain unconvinced. Furthermore, even if Shook’s argument is sound, it seems to me that he makes things a bit too easy for himself by (implicitly) assuming that if an infinite God is unprovable, metaphysical naturalism is not subject to an empirical challenge by a competing worldview. It’s logically possible that an infinite God is unprovable, but a finite supernatural being is provable. Disclaimer: I have not read Shook’s book, The God Debates, so it’s possible Shook has already addressed my points there.]

Articles By or About Tim and Lydia McGrew

Drange’s article may be found here.
[Editor’s Note (Lowder): McGrew probably has a point about the limited scope of ANB’s target, but somehow the recent Geisler-Licona controversy seems relevant. Even if the controversy is not a perfect example or analogy, it does seem to provide evidence that the focus of ANB is a legitimate target, however small or unrepresentative of Evangelical Christianity as a whole it may be. ]

Drange’s article may be found here.
[Editor’s Note (Lowder): I think McGrew’s reply is weaker when applied to confusion regarding morality and salvation than when his reply is applied to confusion about the other topics mentioned by Drange.]

[Editor’s Note (Lowder): The McGrews have written an extremely impressive defense of the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection, drawing upon their obvious expertise in Bayesian confirmation theory. No skeptical, academic work on the resurrection can afford to ignore their article. I haven’t studied Amos’ rebuttal enough to have an opinion on whether I think it is successful; I include it here simply because I think many readers will find it of interest.]

“Strawmen Burning” by Tim McGrew: a response to some misinterpretations of the McGrews’ article on the resurrection

[Editor’s Note (Lowder): In fairness to Amos, it’s worth pointing out that the above article by Amos is not mentioned by McGrew as an example of a misinterpretation.]

Atheism and Morality

Church-State Separation and the U.S. Department of Defense

“There Are Atheists in Foxholes“: an editorial in the Los Angeles Times defending the idea of a chaplain for nonbelievers (HT: Eddie Tabash)

Christianity

This is the text of Licona’s paper, mentioned in the previous links and commentary, responding to Geisler.

[Editor’s Note (Lowder): I’m not sure which conclusions of philosophical significance, if any, can be legitimately drawn from this survey, but this is very interesting.]

“Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church“: results of a study by the Barna Group (HT: Jim Underdown)

[Editor’s Note (Lowder): Reason #6 is, “The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt.” Though the scope of the survey is broader than Evangelical Christianity, this finding is consistent with my earlier posts questioning whether Evangelicalism is compatible with freethought.]

Book Announcements and Reviews

“Where the Substance Really Isn’t” by Tim Callahan: a review of Alvin Plantinga’s Where the Conflict Really Lies

[Editor’s Note (Lowder): I’m still reading Plantinga’s book, so I may change my mind about this, but my initial reaction to Callahan’s review is that at least part of it seems very uncharitable. With all due respect to Callahan, I have to wonder how much of the book’s final chapter he understood. It’s a shame that Skeptic magazine didn’t publish a review by an author who demonstrated even a basic familiarity with Plantinga’s well-known evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN), as opposed to someone who complains about the need for a translation of Plantinga’s prose into plain English, and who wonders out loud if they have missed something in their understanding of the argument. Competent critics of EAAN are not hard to find; see here for an anthology filled with chapters by such authors.]

Miscellaneous

“Transgender Day of Remembrance” by Natalie (@Skepchick)

[Editor’s Note (Lowder): Although metaphysical naturalism does not entail any beliefs regarding the moral issues involved with transsexualism, it is safe to say that religion has traditionally been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, source of opposition to LGBT rights. It’s no coincidence, then, that probably most or virtually all metaphysical naturalists support LGBT rights. I’m especially happy to support to LGBT nontheists.]