Doubting Resolving Doubts. Renewing Purpose. Reasons for God

Why doesn’t God answer our prayers?

Have you ever prayed for something important and good, but the opposite happened? Do you remember how that felt? One member of the Reasons for God community shared what this experience feels like for her. With her permission, I want to share this part of …

In this post, I’d like to consider the following argument with you: Humans love success and winners. One common critique of Christianity is that it is a man-made religion. If Christianity is a man-made religion, it should promote success and winners. But the Christian God repeatedly seems …

The Euthyphro Dilemma, a Socratic dialogue found in Plato’s writings, famously challenges the ideas that ‘the gods’ are a legitimate source of morality. In the dialogue, Socrates asks his friend Euthyphro, “The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or …

Reality has consequences. This is a more important truth than the very popular (and important) saying “Ideas have consequences.” And it is far, far more important than the saying “Elections have consequences.” But, nevertheless, it is a truth often ignored. For instance, there is a …

Is Reason Better Than Religion?

What’s better? To be fully reasonable or to have faith in God?

Many atheists think it is better to be fully reasonable and scientific than cling to the false comfort of religious stories. A leading example of this perspective is Dr. Alex Rosenberg, a professor of philosophy at Duke University.

In his book The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, he explains the purpose of his book, namely, that “this book aims to provide the correct answers to most of the persistent questions” (2). His methodology is equally clear: “we will take the best reason for atheism—science—and show what else it commits us atheists to believing” (3).

Why would he do it this way? Because in his view, “science provides all the significant truths about reality, and knowing such truths is what real understanding is all about” (7). What’s the payoff? “If we can work through the details, we’ll get something much better—a real understanding of life, the universe, everything, warts and all” (17).

The Atheistic Reliability Problem

In preparing for the upcoming launch of True Reason: Confronting the Irrationality of the New Atheism (March 1), I’ve been reading and re-reading the work of many New Atheists. It is a bit tiresome, after a while, to only read attacks against religion instead of a positive, evidence-based case for atheism. So I’ve shifted gears and started into Dr. Alex Rosenberg’s The Atheist’s Guide to Reality. Dr. Rosenberg is a philosophy professor at Duke University. And, to his credit, he wrote his book with a positive purpose: “its aim is to sketch out what we atheists really should believe about reality and our place in it” (KL 88). Overall, I very much appreciate the intention of Dr. Rosenberg in straight-forwardly explaining the nature and implications of an atheistic worldview (which he often refers to as ‘scientism’). He’s a great writer and it’s an interesting book to read.

Still, Rosenberg’s book faces many logical and rational challenges. For instance, very early on he writes that one of the most basic mistakes you can make is “to think that there is any more to reality than the laws of nature that science discovers” (KL 139), but he then very perplexingly goes on to say a lot of things that are very plainly not the laws of nature. Or if we are to understand his book as the deterministic outcome of the laws of nature, then we can no longer understand his words as an argument; rather, the letters on the page are the inevitable outcome of an a-rational process. With this statement, we have either self-contradiction or the abandonment of reason itself.

Is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Responsible?

Now that Boston is secured, Tamerlan Tsarnaev is dead, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in custody, people are starting to ask: what is the best punishment for Dzhokhar?

Many want to hold him responsible for his actions. But did you know that leading atheist thinkers would disagree?

For instance, as Richard Dawkins has argued,

As scientists, we believe that human brains, though they may not work in the same way as man-made computers, are as surely governed by the laws of physics. When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it. We track down the problem and fix it, usually by replacing a damaged component, either in hardware or software. Isn’t the murderer or the rapist just a machine with a defective component? Or a defective upbringing? Defective education? Defective genes?
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Why Naturalism Is False (or Irrational)

“Why Naturalism Is False (or Irrational)” is a talk given to student organizations at both Harvard University and Boston College Law School in April 2013. The following notes reflect the substance of my talk after introductory comments:

Our first task tonight is to define naturalism. What idea is it that I believe is false or irrational?

What is Naturalism?

There are certainly different varieties of naturalism. Words can be defined in different ways. So to be clear, I will identify a particular definition for naturalism and use this definition throughout my talk tonight. If you find some or all of these arguments successful, but believe another version of naturalism is still an intellectually legitimate option, it is important that you clearly define what you mean by ‘naturalism’ so that we use our primary terms in a consistent manner.

How Philosophy Can Help Atheists and Christians Understand Each Other

One of the most common misunderstandings, in even the most gracious and empathetic conversations between Christians and atheists, occurs because of the difference between ontology and epistemology. But with a little philosophical reflection, we can clear up this confusion and help atheists and Christians understand one another.

Really.

Those are hundred-dollar words, so let’s break them down into simple (really simple) definitions:

The Circular Reasoning of Atheists

A common idea is that Christians are particularly prone to circular reasoning. For instance, Winston Wu pulls no punches at DebunkingSkeptics.com, saying, “Christian beliefs are based on 100 percent circular reasoning that lack any valid initial basis or foundation, which Christians do not see due to brainwashing and mind-control.” (Keep Winston in mind – we’ll return to him in a minute). At de-conversion.com, a similar line: “I’m always fascinated by the circular reasoning of Christian scholarship. In fact, some of the more entertaining reading on the web are Christian Apologetics sites.”

There’s no doubt about it: circular reasoning is illogical and irrational. So when Christians use this fallacious method to establish their points, that is unpersuasive, embarrassing, and worthy of criticism.