Responding to Wade's 10 Questions for Christians

 

In this episode, I take a crack at responding to Wade's 10 questions for Christians. 

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(Wade's original video)

An Argument for the Reasonableness of Belief in God

 

In this episode I update my opening statement from my debate with Matt Dillahunty and present an argument for reasonable belief in God. 

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Atheism, Naturalism, and Unfalsifiable Standards

In this episode I discuss atheism, naturalism and if their epistemic standards of evidence insulate their worldview from falsification and create a question begging standard. 

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Atheist Objections - Many Wee Fleas

In this episode I respond off the cuff to the follow atheistic objections: 

“But you haven’t proven God is even a possible explanation!” 

"Oh yeah, well who created your God then?" 

"But the flying spaghetti monster!" 

"If you grew up in Iran you'd be a Muslim." 

"The Bible was written by bronze-age, ignorant goat herders ..." 

"Christian New Testament scholars are just biased." 

"There's no evidence Jesus ever existed!" 

 Enjoy the show!

Freed Byte - Can God Create a Rock so Heavy...

 

Can God create a rock so heavy that even he  cannot lift it? Let's find out!

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Belief, Certainty and the Meme of Atheism

What does it mean to know something? If an atheist is someone who lacks belief and is also an agnostic because they arent certain (i.e. dont know), then does that have any strange implications? 

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My conversation with Ozymandius Ramses II on Atheism and Burden of Proof

Do We Disbelieve for the Same Reasons?

"If you think about why you dont believe in all other gods, then you'll know why I dont believe in your god. I just go one god further."

Is this objection from atheists meaningful? 

Enjoy the show!

Christianity is false because... Denominations?

In debating with atheists, we have all heard something like this:

“Yeah but you Christians cant even agree on what it means to be a Christian? Why should I be your kind of Christian and not one of the other 40,000 denominations out there? How can Christianity be true if you all cannot even agree on what it is?”

This is a bad argument from the atheist for several reasons.

First, even if there were 40,000 denominations, and even if they were all uniquely different in substantive ways, it does not follow that the Christian with whom they are talking to believes that all or most of the other denomination that they do not belong to are not Christians or not "real" Christians or whatever. For example, I belong to a rather small American denomination within the conservative Reformed and Presbyterian tradition called the Presbyterian Church in America (the PCA). I have no problem saying that I have Christian brothers and sisters (even theologically incorrect ones) who hold to the core aspects of the Christian faith in nearly all other orthodox denominations – Baptists, Anglicans, Methodists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and so forth. We have some disagreements to be sure, but we can all stand shoulder to shoulder on the core aspects of the nature of God, the Trinity, the person and work of Jesus Christ (namely expressed in his death, burial and bodily resurrection), and the commission to share the gospel to the world as much as we can before the return of Christ at the end of the present world.

Second, the existence of disagreement does not necessarily count as evidence against a view or in favor of its opposition. There are at least 10 different interpretations of Quantum Mechanics that are all consonant with the observable data. The fact that scientists disagree about the interpretation is not evidence against the existence of a quantum world, nor can the mere presence of disagreement with other views be an argument against any one view over the other. It also cannot be used reasonably as evidence in favor of some position that would deny quantum mechanics altogether. So too, the existence of theological disagreement between denominations on largely tertiary issues cannot function as an objection to Christianity or in favor of atheism. Think about what would happen if we allowed this kind of argument for worldviews more generally. Would the existence of mere disagreement between worldviews mean that ALL worldviews are wrong? Or could we, in a debate, tell one side that they are probably wrong simply because other worldview advocates disagree with them? Of course not. That would just be an objection which is trivially easy to dispatch.

Third, when someone makes a claim like this, we should always check their sources. The statistic for this number appears to be from the World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE) by Barrett, Kurian, Johnson (Oxford Univ Press, 2nd edition, 2001). While it does come to a total of 33,000 denominations, the problem with how the atheist uses the stat lies in how they understand what a denomination is compared to how the encyclopedia in question understood it. The atheists are using the objection to try and say that all of these denominations are totally different and do not agree and that each denomination is an instance of evidence for that. However, that is not how the WCE defines what a denomination is in their study. WCE defines a denomination as follows:

'Denominations. A denomination is defined in this Encyclopedia as an organized aggregate of worship centers or congregations of similar ecclesiastical tradition within a specific country; i.e. as an organized Christian church or tradition or religious group or community of believers, within a specific country, whose component congregations and members are called by the same denominational name in different areas, regarding themselves as one autonomous Christian church distinct from other denominations, churches and traditions. As defined here, world Christianity consists of 6 major ecclesiastico-cultural blocs, divided into 300 major ecclesiastical traditions, composed of over 33,000 distinct denominations in 238 countries, these denominations themselves being composed of over 3,400,000 worship centers, churches or congregations.' (Barrett et al, volume 1, page 16, Table 1-5, emphasis added)

From this definition, two things should be brought into focus about how WCE defined a Christian denomination,

1.   Denominations are defined primarily geographically. That is, there may be one denominational body but it is counted as a new denomination for every country that it operates in. I mentioned my denomination, the PCA, previously. The PCA has church plants in a couple dozen countries. This means that while the PCA is the main ecclesiastical body, and we all agree and adhere to the same confessional standards, this one denomination will be counted as a couple dozen denomination in the WCE survey.

2. The WCE has no problem classifying these 33,000 denominations into 6 “ecclesiastico-cultural blocs.” This means that the vast majority of these fall into just a handful of buckets.

Therefore, the main problems with how the atheists use the final number from this list is that they completely ignore the causal factors that lead to denominationalism in the first place. Often the dividing line between denominations or for why one church will plant a new one is geographical, or if there is a split and the new church is one that is unaffiliated with the prior church (either peacefully or by a split) has absolutely nothing to do with anything remotely like substantive theology. Denominations and churches are established as distinct from others because of language barriers, cultural distinctives, personality differences, geographical differences, socio-economic, missional purposes, stylistic differences (such as the kind of music played or even, sadly, the kind of carpet that got installed) as well as a whole host other reasons. There are even micro-geographical reasons since the advent of the automobile and the invention of the suburb. We no longer see new churches being called “The 1^st Methodist Church of Townsville” but rather “Curve” or something trendy like that. This is because people now have options. There are churches the missionally cater to Baby Boomers and Millennials and everything beyond and between. While many bemoan this kind of consumeristic segmentation and its effects on the church to water it down and juvenilize the church (myself included) this cannot be denied as a real factor in the segmentation of denominations even in small geographical areas. Within my rather small town, there are approximately 2 dozen baptistic churches that likely believe almost identical things as doctrine (at least on core essentials). But one may be a mega church because it was more successful in implementing modern church growth tactics while another fills a need for those with families but who may not like the faceless environment of a megachurch, and another may appeal to those who want to sing hymns and another those who want to sing contemporary songs, and so forth. Many of these churches are Independent, which leads to the next issue with the atheistic use of these statistics.

Sometimes, a certain strong view on the independent nature of the church, that is, that as a matter of course, these Christians may think that the most ethical, functional, and pure way to organize and lead a church just is for it to be independent of the institutional structures that we have seen in history can potentially lead to so much division. We can see this further in the list of denominations that the WCE labels as “Independents” where over 8,000 of the denominations listed just were independent (that is, entirely unaffiliated) Baptist churches. These churches would in most cases be almost doctrinally identical to what we would find in the major American free conference of churches known as the Southern Baptist Convention. In addition, the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches are counted by their various Rites and Orders even though they all are part of one institutional denomination.

Another problem with trying to use the list provided by the WCE the way atheists do, is that the list includes any group that self-identifies as a Christian church (e.g. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians, Oneness Pentecostals, Gnostics, Unitarians, Prosperity cults, Divine Science, Swedenborgian, Universalist Unitarians, etc.) This means that groups which are historically not part of orthodox Christianity and have been identified as cults (multiplied by their various country counts) are included in the list to the tune of several thousands.

I would then recommend a taxonomy of Christian Churches as follows (here I am even allowing the taxonomy to include self-identification as a means of entry to the list):

1. Roman Catholic

2. Eastern Churches

3. Reformed/Lutheran Protestant

4. Arminian/Anabaptist Protestant

5. Pentecostal/Charismatic

6. Theologically Liberal Churches

7. Cultic/Marginal Churches

This is simply a far more accurate way of looking at the various denominational traditions in a way that best eliminates the noise from the statistics dealing with geographical, linguistic, cultural, stylistic, personality, etc. differences that actually drive most of the denominationalism that we observe in reality.

The great irony of all of this for us who are watching the rise of atheist and secular groups, churches and Sunday assemblies, is that they are already showing the early signs of denominationalism. They form in different areas because of geography; several will form in the same area due to demographic or missional differences; some are parts of broader national affiliations, and some are not; some are active politically and some want to be intentionally non-partisan; some are geared toward involvement in education and local schools and colleges while some want to equip the “every man” and others just want to give a "fellowship" environment for unbelievers to gather and break bread together. We have even started to see "church splits" in groups like the Sunday Assembly and the Godless Revival. If we started counting atheist groups and assemblies like the WCE does with denominations, we would see the early seeds of denominationalism on a global scale within secular groups. I wonder what will happen with a group that generally prides itself on independence and having no creedal foundation that ties them all together - which we know serves as a unifying feature within Christianity. Give atheism the 2000 years that Christianity has had, and I wonder just how many millions of denominations such a group will have.

Atheism and Burden of Proof with Ozymandias Ramses II

I'm joined by atheist Ozymandias Ramses II to talk about the nature of atheism, atheistic claims and if atheists carry any burden of proof/justification.

Enjoy the show!

What is Atheism? with Benjamin Blake Speed Watkins

In this episode I review a debate between two atheists (Ben Watkins and Tom Jump) on what the most reasonable use of the term atheism is.


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If Christians Used the Rhetoric of Lacktheism

Christian: Gosh, I never realised that not believing in evolution had to be so complicated. If you are interested in why I take that position, you've only to ask.

Evolutionist: So then you believe evolution is false?

Christian: Not believing in evolution is my position.Now, would you like to have a discussion as to why I take that position where you are more than welcome to challenge anything you think is wrong?

Evolutionist: Ok but what is your position? I’m asking what you do believe. So if I ask you, “Is evolution true” and you answer with “I don’t believe in evolution” do you mean that you lack a belief that evolution is true or that you believe that evolution is false?

Christian: Ah, you must be using a different meaning than me of “position.” No probs. Position seems to be a good term to use, I think. If you don't, that's cool. I believe lot's of things and I don't believe many things. Did you have anything specific in mind? If you ask me if evolution is true, my answer will be that I don't know. Unlike most evolutionists here, I usually try to answer the question I am asked rather than a different question.

Evolutionist: so then your agnostic about it?

Christian: Yes, as far a knowledge claims about evolution are concerned. I thought you wanted to know about my beliefs though.

Evolutionist: What do you mean by knowledge? Do you mean that you don’t have warrant for your beliefs that are true? Or do you mean that you don’t have the psychological condition of being certain? Notice I asked what you BELIEVE. And you said “I don’t know”. If you take the rather strange view that knowledge ISNT a kind of belief but refers to a psychological condition of being certain, then how does that answer my question about your beliefs anyway? Because at this point you’re demonstrating exactly why I spend so much time clarifying these terms. I cannot even get to WHY you believe what you believe because you won’t even admit that you have a belief and then state what it is that you believe.

Christian: No you didn't. You asked does evolution is true. You did not ask me whether I believe that evolution is true.

Evolutionist: In what other context does asking a question if something is true entail me asking for only if you are psychologically certain of your belief? Just be honest and answer the question. Don’t do the whole “belief that isn’t a belief but is a belief when it’s not knowledge even though you know that you know it but you don’t know it because you aren’t certain.” So again, is evolution true?

Christian: And therein lies your problem. You spend so much time clarifying these terms inside your own head, you neglect to hear or listen to what the person in from of you is saying. You asked me a question which I answered i.e. “Is evolution true?” – I don’t know. The problem is you were expecting the answer in your own terms and as a result, it became confused such that you thought you asked whether I believe in evolution. Go back and try to read the exchange again as a disinterested party.

As I just said, if you try to let go of your own presumptions about what and how other people think and believe, and actually listen to what they tell you, you might find your conversations are more productive and less of a dance.

Evolutionist: I’ve asked what you believe. Several times. And your response was to try and presumptively fight some claim about certainty and knowledge. Just answer the question honestly. If someone asks if evolution is true, that just is the time to say what you believe. No one is asking only if you’re in a state of psychological certainty.

Christian: I have not fought anything. I have simply responded to what you ask. Which question? There seem to be several on the table.

Evolutionist: Is evolution true? I’m not asking if you’re certain. I’m asking what you believe the truest answer to that is?

Christian: You have just asked two different questions. No probs though. Since I have already answered the first I'll answer the second this time. No, I don't hold the belief that evolution is true. (Hint: if you want more details you will need to ask further questions.)

Evolutionist: I’m not asking you what beliefs you DONT hold. What DO you believe?

Christian: You didn't ask that. You asked if I believe in evolution. Can you see how tricky this is now when you have the questions in your head somewhere but you find it difficult to phrase them correctly. Try to let go of the answers you want the other person to say. So you want to know about the beliefs I do hold? OK. That could cover a wide area, any particular context you are interested in?

Evolutionist: NoI didn’t. Read it again.  I asked if evolution is true or not. What do you believe is the truest answer? That’s not asking if you have the belief that evolution is true.

Christian: I guess it is because evolutionists are so wrapped up in their own beliefs that they find it so difficult to ask questions that might relate to other positions. The key is to let the other person tell you about themselves in their terms. If you ask them about labels which you have already decided the meaning of, they may not know what you mean or worse, they may answer based on their own interpretation of those words.Now where were we? What would you like to find out about from me?

Evolutionist: Is evolution true?

Christian: I don't know if it’s true or not.

And so on....

Is the Christian being reasonable and actually answering the question?

————-
This was an almost word for word conversation I had with an atheist. I cleaned up some of the text and removed personal names and such. Besides that, if you replace evolution with God, it’s the identical conversation.

More on Atheism as "Lacktheism"

If atheism is defined as being a biographical lack of belief, and if agnostic is used as an adjective that modifies atheism (i.e. 'I'm an agnostic atheist"), then that would mean "I do not know that I lack a belief." Which clearly isnt what the lacktheist is claiming.

But if agnosticism means that he believes that we live in a godless universe but that he doesnt claim certainty in his belief (which isnt what we mean by "know" btw) then the agnostic adjective is just superfluous because at that point it means that he DOES believe that we live or probably live in a godless-cosmos, which just is standard philosophical sense of the term atheist to mean that someone believes that a god does not or probably does not exist. But then he should just say that he is an atheist in that sense and avoid all the confusion and unnecessary adjectives in the first place.

Therefore, if atheism just means "I lack a god-belief" and "agnosticism" means "I lack certainty" (since that's how most of them use "know"), then to say "I'm an agnostic atheist" just means, "I am not certain that I lack a god-belief."

To follow this, atheists will often say that they are not certain or that that could be wrong. Which then leads me to wonder the following questions: You could be wrong about what? If you say that as an atheist that you havent made a claim, then what claim did you make that you could be wrong about? You could be wrong that you lack a belief in God? 

All you did was give a biographical description of your own psychology. So you could be wrong about that?

But this is just obviously an absurd use of language because if atheism means "I believe a god doesnt exist but I'm not absolutely certain of it, but I know that I lack a belief" then that is "I am an agnostic-(philosophical)atheist-gnostic-(biographical)atheist."

I dont need to say that I lack a belief in fairies but that I believe there are probably none but I'm not absolutely certain of it so therefore I'm an "agnostic-aFairyiest-gnostic-aFairyist."

I think the lacktheist use of the term just conflates numerous questions:

1. What do I believe?
2. Why do I believe it?
3. How convinced am I that my belief is true?
4. Can I/Ought I be able to demonstrate this belief to others?

So if atheism just is the position that we live or probably live in a god-less existence, that is independent of how you'd answer 2-4. You may believe that because you think that is the position supported by evidence, you may believe it because you think there is no evidence for God to affirm a belief, you may believe it with little certainty or with dogmatic certainty, and you may think that you cannot demonstrate it to anyone because you think proving a negative is impossible.

Now, I think there is a general lack of understanding from atheists and theists about epistemology and warrant. But generally #1 is how we would answer the question, "Does God exist?"

1. Theism - the position that God does or probably does exist. (Yes/probably)
2. Agnosticism - the position that we do not have evidence either way and so it's not reasonable to answer yes or no. (Abstain)
3. Atheism - the position that we do or probably do live in a god-less existence. (No/Probably not)

Again, you may affirm atheism because you think there are positive reasons for it. Maybe you think science has "disproven" God or that Michael Martin was right that the omniattributes are contradictory and thus the concept is incoherent. Or you may believe atheism is true because you think there is a lack of compelling evidence to the contrary. But how ever you answer question #2 concerning WHY you believe it is IRRELEVANT to the fact that you believe WHAT you believe.

It also is irrelevant how confident you are in your beliefs. Here you can be hardly confident in atheism and merely think it's just more plausible than not, or you can be dogamtically and unassailable certain that it is true. The psychological condition of being certain ABOUT your belief doesnt entail that you do not possess that belief.

My next point is just that if you think you are not able to justify your belief to other people is not relevant to if you do in fact hold that belief. And if you think that your belief is just the kind of thing that cannot be demonstrated to be true to others, then you need to simply come to grips with that and find a way to explain why you have warrant for believing it true (and arguing that other views are false). You inability to demonstrate it however does not mean that you do not have that belief. This should be obviously true to atheists especially considering the majority of them likely believe that theists have beliefs that we are unable to justify to their satisfaction. They would not allow us to say that we are warranted to believe it just because it is the kind of thing that cannot be demonstrated. (Though I personally think it can.)

So falling back on saying that atheism just is a BIOGRAPHICAL state of lacking a god-belief not only doesnt answer the question, "Does God exist" (remember, atheists are the ones who commonly claim that it is just an answer to ONE question - does God exist), but it also does not address what you DO believe. We wouldnt say that theism is psychological condition of lacking a belief in a god-less existence. That just is a corollary to the actual positive belief.

So what is a better way to use and understand these terms? Well we should be transparent about our switching of terms from autobiographical uses of the term to describe our psychological states and the philosophical use of the term to describe positive beliefs.

The New Atheist redefinition of the term as being “a lack of belief in God” is something that presents a rather weak position and one with many conceptual problems. I have laid out many of the problems that arise from this new colloquial use of the term (especially when coupled with other redefinitions such that belief becomes synonymous with opinion without evidence and knowledge is observation of empirical data) so here let me simply give a better framework for using these terms in an attempt to Steelman atheism. This is in no way original to me, I just hope to lay it out in as trimmed down and simple a manner as possible.


DEFINITIONS:

P-Theism. Philosophical Theism: The belief that God(s) exists. (Let us ignore for now the different conception of God/gods).

B-Theism. (Auto)Biographical Theism: A description of a person or the self, such that God belief is a proposition that is present within their cognitive framework. The subject possess a belief in God/gods.

P-Atheism. Philosophical Atheism: The belief that God(s) does not exists.

B-Atheism. (Auto)Biographical Atheism: A description of a person or the self, such that God belief is not a proposition that is present within their cognitive framework. The subject does not possess a belief in God/gods.

Remember, why someone affirms P-Theism or P-Atheism, how convinced they are of either of them, and if they can demonstrate it to others, has no bearing on if they do in fact affirm one of them.

We can think of the following break down of terminological uses as a help here.



Think about it this way. It seems that to employ these labels as many atheists do, they would actually need to stop equivocating and start meaningfully differentiating the concepts. We could ask when someone claims to be an "agnostic atheist," what is it that they mean? Are they claiming to be an agnostic B-Atheist, or an agnostic P-Atheist?

If they claim that Atheism just is and only means B-Atheism ("atheism just is a lack of belief!"), then most would almost certainly be Gnostic B-Atheists. And that position would just be trivially true as a psychological description of the person. It seems they would also need to employ a parallel usage for B-Theism and P-Theism such that they would need to say that B-Theism is just as trivially true as B-Atheism.

WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

Often the New Atheist will equivocate between A1 and A2 while simultaneously only ever allowing for T1 for any kind of meaning of theism - such that theism or being a theist just IS to make a claim such as T1. So they will say things like, “Atheism just is, by definition, a lack of a belief in God/gods,” but then will also say things like, “Theism is false, irrational, stupid, and atheism is true, evidence based and rational.” The problems that this creates should be evident to any familiar with the literature on this issue but let me walk through some of them here.

1. Equivocations are never a reasonable way to dialogue. When the atheist equivocates between A1 and A2, they are moving goal posts within the conversation. On the one hand they are making the autobiographical claim about the self, but when they say something like “atheism is evidence based,” they do not mean simply that there is evidence that they lack a belief. They mean that it is evidentially veridical or probable that either a) we live in a god-less cosmos such that no being such as God/gods exist, or that b) all present theistic concepts are false. But those claims about reality and the cosmos are not the same claim as the autobiographical claim about what they personally believe or do not believe.

2. There is an attempt to flee any burden of proof. This is often the purpose behind the equivocation above. The New Atheist will say things like “Science disproves the existence of God” or “God is an incoherent concept,” or “If God existed then we wouldn’t see much evil/suffering,” or any other number of assertions meant to convey the actual or probable non-existence of God. Then when asked to defend the claims, the equivocation of #1 is employed and the insular move is made to deny a burden of proof for any claim because, so it is stated, they merely lack a belief and as such they are not the ones with a burden and the theist must be the one to present evidence to the contrary. This is quite literally the same thing as when the misinformed theist tries to tell the atheist that they do not need to defend God and that the atheist must prove that there is not one.

3. Beyond the equivocation, there is also an imbalanced comparison to T1 and T2. For if atheism just is only and ever A2, and this is used as the warrant for the claim that atheism “is true,” then it seems that this would require the atheist to allow for the same analog in theism, namely, T2. Both T2 and A2 are trivially true positions because they are simply descriptions of one’s personal psychology, not propositional claims about the actual existence of God/gods. Therefore insofar as the description of the subject as being T2 or A2 is accurate, and we typically have no good reason to think someone claiming T2 or A2 for themselves are being disingenuous, then they are just equally trivially true.

4. However, given 3, if the atheist wants to claim that T1 is false or that “atheism is true” is some other sense than the trivially true sense of A2, then they seemingly must affirm A1 or something very close to it, which has propositional statements with truth values independent of A2. They would then need to possess warrant for that belief to be rational. This does not mean they must be able to to justify it to others, though many think they would carry a burden of justification, but as stated above, if they want to say that a Christian is irrational in their beliefs unless they can justify it to the satisfaction of the opposing view, then it seems that scalpel must be allowed to cut both ways.

In defining "atheism" only as the autobiographical use to avoid burden, the atheist will create de facto inconsistencies when they move away from being the pure Socratic skeptic (which they always do). The atheist simply is not neutral in these discussions so the instant that they start making evaluative, epistemic, factual, evidentiary, etc. claims, they have ceased being the neutral skeptic and have begun affirming propositional content. And that is absolutely fine. We all do it. Making claims isnt a bad thing. The problem is that they think because they have defined atheism in the autobiographical sense that they then carry no burden and are still being neutral when they are advancing propositional truth claims. That is the rhetorical inconsistency I was pushing on. This is why I said (repeatedly, despite him ignoring it every time) that atheists can define atheism however they want, I really dont care. The issue is when their definition conflicts with their epistemology and rhetorical strategy such that they claim neutrality when they are not being neutral. I'm pushing them to be epistemologically self-aware.

For more of my comments on the meaning of atheism:

EPISODE: Should Atheists Argue that Atheism is a Lack of Belief?
Should Atheists Argue That Atheism is a Lack of Belief?
Is Atheism a Belief?
A-Theism or Atheios-ism?

What Is Atheism? - with atheist Benajamin Blake Speed Watkins


Atheism and Burden - with atheist Ozymandias Ramses II

Freedway Thinker #20 - More on Burden and Defeaters

In this quick reflection I talk again about burden of proof and defeaters, and if theists/Christians are rational when they ask atheists if they can prove God does not exist or that our beliefs are false.

Enjoy the show!

New Atheism and Tax Exemption

CosmicSkeptic and His Jesus Mythicist Fail

In this episode I give some critical comments about the method and argumentation of Alex O'Conner (CosmicSkeptic) in his recent debate with Jonathan McLatchie.

The basic points of contention - his failed epistemological standard and use of hyper-skepticism as a method, and his advancement of the failed thesis of Jesus Mythicism and unchecked parroting of arguments made by the likes of unemployed blogger, Richard Carrier.

Enjoy the show!

Freedway Thinker #8 - Is God an Invisible Gardener?

Freedway Thinker #6 - The Burden of the Burden of Proof

Has Christianity Historically Been In Conflict with Science? Aron Ra v. Tyler Vela

Here is my debate with Aron Ra dealing with the supposed historical conflict between science and Christianity.

Enjoy!

And for those interested in the sources and the Bibliography I mentioned, here you go!

Bibliography

Barbour, Ian G. 2007. When Science Meets Religion : [Enemies, Strangers, or Partners?]. New York: Harpersanfrancisco.

———. and Society For. 2007. Religion and Science : Historical and Contemporary Issues. Cambridge: International Society For Science And Religion.

Barr, Stephen M. 2016. Believing Scientist - Essays on Science and Religion. William B Eerdmans Publishing.

C John Collins. 2003. Science & Faith : Friends or Foes? Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.

"Center for Research in Science by Azusa Pacific University on Apple Podcasts." 2015. Azusa Pacific University. https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/center-for-research-in-science/id421902830?mt=10.

Chapman, Allan. 2013. Slaying the Dragons : Destroying Myths in the History of Science and Faith. Oxford, England: Lion.

———. 2019. "History, Science, Religion: Capturing The Public Imagination - Professor Allan Chapman." Vimeo. Gresham College. March 19. https://vimeo.com/22188636.

Dennett, Daniel and Alvin Plantinga. 2011. Science and Religion : Are They Compatible? New York: Oxford University Press.

Ecklund, Elaine Howard and Christopher P Scheitle. 2018. Religion vs. Science What Religious People Really Think. New York Oxford University Press.

Ferngren, Gary B. 2017. Science and Religion : A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Grant, Edward. 1996. The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages : Their Religious, Institutional, and Intellectual Contexts (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Haag, James W, Gregory R Peterson, Michael L Spezio, F Leron Shults, Francisca Cho, Geoffrey Cantor, Brian Yazzie Burkhart, et al. 2014. The Routledge Companion to Religion and Science. New York: Routledge.

Hannam, James. 2011. The Genesis of Science : How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. Washington (Dc): Regnery Publishing, Cop.

Lennox, John C. 2009. God’s Undertaker : Has Science Buried God? Oxford: Lion.

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———. 2007. Science in the Middle Ages. Chicago: Univ. Of Chicago Pr.

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Faith and the Atheism Who Loves Her

In this episode we explore the weird and wild world of pop atheism and it's claim that "faith" just is valuing belief without evidence. Is that the Biblical view? Is that even an accurate view of Christian belief? Let's find out!

Enjoy the show!

For the video: