Month: January 2018

Tim Crane on Religious Violence

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In his new book, The Meaning of Belief, philosopher Tim Crane argues that much of the anti-religious animus of atheists is largely motivated by the spectacle of religious violence in our day, typified by the events of 9/11/2001. Atheists such as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris passionately denounce the violence done in the … Tim Crane on Religious Violence

Problems With TASO: Part 1

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INTRO TO TASO For several years, I have been working on an article about Richard Swinburne’s case for God. I’m currently revising the section of that article dealing with the third argument in Swinburne’s case: TASO (the Teleological Argument from Spatial Order). In working on that section of the article, I noticed that my favorite … Problems With TASO: Part 1

Kreeft’s Case for God – Part 11: Evaluation of Argument #1

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THE CONTEXT Peter Kreeft and his co-author Ronald Tacelli open their Handbook of Christian Apologetics  (hereafter: HCA) with these words about their “reasons for writing this book”: Kreeft and Tacelli believe that heaven and hell are in the balance for every human being, when it comes to acceptance or rejection of “the Christian faith”.  So, it … Kreeft’s Case for God – Part 11: Evaluation of Argument #1

Kreeft’s Case for God – Part 9: The Argument from Change

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MY EVALUATION OF THE SECOND HALF OF KREEFT’S CASE In Part 1 and Part 2 I argued that eight out of ten (80%) of the last ten arguments in Peter Kreeft’s collection of twenty arguments (from Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Chapter 3; hereafter: HCA) are AWFUL arguments that are not worthy of serious consideration, that we should thus toss them aside, and ignore … Kreeft’s Case for God – Part 9: The Argument from Change

Trump, Evangelicals, and the Single-Issue Voter

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A couple of months ago I posted a piece here on SO titled “Just How Religious is the Religious Right?” I argued that despite their ostentatious affirmations of their own religiosity, supporters of the religious right drop their proclaimed religious values faster than Jericho’s walls tumbled when those values become politically inexpedient. Nothing demonstrates this … Trump, Evangelicals, and the Single-Issue Voter

Feser’s Case for God – Part 8: Actualization of a Potential

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FESER’S ANALYSIS OF CHANGE A key idea in Chunk #1 of Feser’s Aristotelian argument is his analysis or understanding of change: A. The occurrence of any change C presupposes the actualization of a potential of some thing or substance S which changes. There are three phrases that constitute the key components of Feser’s analysis of change: the actualization of… …a … Feser’s Case for God – Part 8: Actualization of a Potential

2017 in the Rearview Mirror

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I had hoped to answer the question “Does God exist?” in 2017, at least to my own satisfaction.  No such luck.  That was a bit too aggressive of a goal.   However, I did make some good progress.  I learned that Norman Geisler’s case for God (in When Skeptics Ask) is a steaming pile of dog … 2017 in the Rearview Mirror