apologist watch

William Lane Craig: “Animals aren’t aware that they’re in pain”

Recently, some theists have attempted to deal with that part of the problem of evil generated by horrendous animal suffering found in nature – including hundreds of millions of years of animal suffering before we humans even showed up – by saying that animals aren’t aware that they are in pain. They maintain this is William Lane Craig: “Animals aren’t aware that they’re in pain”

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence (ECREE), Part 6: Is ECREE False? A Reply to Greg Koukl and Melinda Penner (continued)

(continued from Part 5) Penner’s Third Rebuttal: A third response to the demand recognizes that very extraordinary events happen all the time if the co-occurrence of several features in a state of affairs is evaluated probabilistically. I agree with this sentence (if “extraordinary events” means “improbable or very improbable events”), but this does not in Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence (ECREE), Part 6: Is ECREE False? A Reply to Greg Koukl and Melinda Penner (continued)

Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence (ECREE), Part 5: Is ECREE False? A Reply to Greg Koukl and Melinda Penner

In my first post in this series, I offered a Bayesian interpretation of the principle, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (ECREE). Greg Koukl, however, disagrees with ECREE. He recently explained why on his radio show (click here for audio); also, Melinda Penner, a member of Koukl’s staff, has written on the issue here and here. In Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence (ECREE), Part 5: Is ECREE False? A Reply to Greg Koukl and Melinda Penner

The Evidential Argument from the History of Science, Part 4: Reply to ‘cl’

Introduction Theists hold that there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person (God) who created the universe. Metaphysical naturalists, on the other hand, hold that the universe is a closed system, which means that nothing that is not part of the natural world affects it. Metaphysical naturalism (N) denies the existence of all supernatural The Evidential Argument from the History of Science, Part 4: Reply to ‘cl’

Did William Lane Craig Confuse “Pornographic” with “Profane”?

In an earlier post, I reported that William Lane Craig had written that Internet Infidels sites “are literally pornographic (evil writing).” I have to confess that when I first read this, I scratched my head. I thought to myself, “Does the word ‘pornographic’ have some secondary meaning I hadn’t run across before?” It appears the Did William Lane Craig Confuse “Pornographic” with “Profane”?

Chris Hallquist vs. William Lane Craig on Dishonesty: Part 1

Christopher Hallquist recently finished a series of blog posts about William Lane Craig. In addition to providing objections to Craig’s various arguments, Hallquist also accuses Craig of dishonesty in his work. In this post, I want to review Hallquist’s evidence for that accusation and figure out if the accusation is justified. Here is an outline Chris Hallquist vs. William Lane Craig on Dishonesty: Part 1