Murray’s Primer on Atheism

I’ll shortly announce the addition of my popular class on Christian and Islamic counter-apologetics to my monthly online course offerings. Which means it’s time to discuss the few issues I do have with my preferred course text for that: Malcolm Murray’s...

PragerU to The Internet: Science Proves God, You Pinko Commies!

PragerU claims in multiple conservative propaganda videos that science has proved God exists and atheists should just go stuff it already. I’ll tackle this nonsense today—just to be useful, since most of PragerU’s critiques online target its lies,...

How I’d Answer the PhilPapers Survey

One of the most interesting and useful things Phil Papers did was conduct a massive survey of professors and PhDs in philosophy. I will here provide how I’d have answered on that survey myself, and compare it to all respondents with PhDs in philosophy, and the...

Pascal’s Wager and the Ad Baculum Fallacy

I’m sure you’ve all heard of Pascal’s Wager. The gist of it is that if you bet on there being a God (meaning, to Pascal, the Medieval Catholic God), you have an infinite expected return on investment, because at worst it costs you nothing (or at...

Theism & Atheism: Science

Part 3 of my series on the new Macmillan reference Theism & Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy: my discussion of the Argument from Science, which holds that the collective consequence of the advance of the sciences is the substantial reduction in the...

Theism & Atheism: Miracles

Part 2 of my series on the new Macmillan reference Theism & Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy: my discussion of the Argument from Miracles, which turns that argument on its head. Far from being evidence for theism, the collective evidence regarding miracle...

Theism & Atheism: Doxastic Foundations

This year Macmillan produced a peer reviewed collection of position papers between atheists and theists titled Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy (2019), in which I contributed several chapters. Like most academic monographs these days it’s...

Who Is an Atheist?

Is everyone who lacks belief in a god an atheist? Or is there always some middle category—we’ll call it “agnostic”—such that (a) they don’t believe any gods exist but also, at the same time, (b) they can never be called an atheist?...

This Is How We Know Christianity Is a Delusion

In researching another article I came across an old piece by Mark McIntyre. On his blog Attempts at Honesty, back in 2011, he wrote a brief piece dismissing New Atheism with the argument that “their unbelief is not due to the lack of evidence but the suppression...

Is a Good God Logically Impossible?

Philosopher James Sterba just came out with a book of that title, arguing for the conclusion that a good God is logically impossible, given present observations. At the same time, Michael Shermer and Brian Huffling published in Skeptic Magazine a closing exchange in...

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: My Closing Reply

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For subsequent entries, see index. We’re now closing up Dr....

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: Marshall’s Twelfth Response

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For subsequent entries, see index. We’re now closing up Dr....

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: My Twelfth Reply

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For subsequent entries, see index. We’re now discussing the...

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: Marshall’s Eleventh Response

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For subsequent entries, see index. We’re now on to Dr....

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: My Eleventh Reply

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For subsequent entries, see index. We’re now discussing the...

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: Marshall’s Tenth Response

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For subsequent entries, see index. We’re now on to Dr....