Recent Discussion of My Old List, “How to be an Atheist Apologist”

I haven’t been a regular, active participant on message boards for years, but I recently decided to participate in the thread at Rational Skepticism about my 2006 post, “How to be an Atheist Apologist.” The topics we’ve discussed include:

  • Is the concept of an “atheist apologist” even coherent or is just a contradiction in terms?
  • Where was the sarcasm in my post? Was there any sarcasm in my post?
  • Introduction to basic terminology in Bayesian confirmation theory, e.g., prior probability, explanatory power, etc.
  • Whether the prior probability of theism is equal to that of pastafarianism (the Flying Spaghetti Monster), Invisible Pink Unicorns, Santa Claus, leprechauns, ghosts, etc.
  • My Bayesian fine-tuning argument for God’s existence and the multiverse objection to fine-tuning arguments (plural)
  • Historicity of Jesus
  • The definition of atheism, the anal-retentive defense of etymological purism, and linguistic relativism vs. objectivism

The discussion board thread may be found here; my comments start here.