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Triablogue guys write massive response to “The Christian Delusion”

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Apparently a bunch of less-moderate atheists like Hector Avalos, Richard Carrier and Robert Price decided to write a book attacking Christianity. These guys are internet infidel types. Dan Barker gives the foreword, and I don’t think he is a very even-keeled person.

The Triablogue post is here. Their e-book is free to download.

Excerpt:

The book contains chapters written by a wide range of modern atheists, including Hector Avalos, Richard Carrier, and Edward T. Babinski[*]. (If those names sound familiar it’s because we’ve engaged with each of them many times on Triablogue.) Of his contribution to the book, Carrier slapped both of his chapters with a “tour de force” label and confidently assured us, “I doubt I’ll ever have to write another [refutation of the resurrection].” He says: “My debunking of [Christian claims on science] is so decisive in this chapter, you won’t need to refer anyone anywhere else.”

But such hubris vastly overreaches reality, and Triablogue is here to demonstrate it with The Infidel Delusion.

The Infidel Delusion was written (in alphabetical order) by Patrick Chan, Jason Engwer, Steve Hays, and Paul Manata. This is a true tour de force. By the time I got to Manata’s debunking of Valerie Tarico’s naturalistic reductionism in chapter two, the perfect metaphor had formed in my head: Collectively, these Triabloggian authors were firing intellectual howitzer shells point-blank into a cardboard shanty town.

You can watch the Craig vs Avalos debate, or the Craig vs Carrier debate or the Craig vs Price debate if you want to see how well their ideas stand up in a real contest.

You can find the debates here.

Thanks to Jason Engwer for giving me the heads-up about Triablogue’s rebuttal. Triablogue is a serious apologetics blog.

In all fairness, there are much better non-Christians out there who are not crazy, like Austin Dacey and Paul Draper. Although Price sounded good in his recent debate on the Bible and slavery.

9 thoughts on “Triablogue guys write massive response to “The Christian Delusion””

  2. Price may be on the lunatic fringe, but he knows his stuff. Craig crushed him in debate, but Price is a skillful and persuasive writer.

    We really can’t afford to ignore these guys even if there is a higher class of atheist out there. The likes of Loftus, Carrier etc. can have a tremendously negative influence on the faith of the average person. I have the book and while I thought Barker’s foreward was a lot of bells and whistles, there are some compelling arguments in there. All of them are flawed, but if I hadn’t been studying apologetics for some time now, I would find them very troubling. Even so, I’m glad that Traiblogue has risen to the challenge because they hopefully will lay to bed any outstanding issues in my mind!

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    1. You’re right. Price was actually incredibly good in his debate on Unbelievable. He was gentle and sensible. I’ll fix the post.

      UPDATE: I fixed the post! It’s a lot less stupid now, and thank you for your comment. I had forgotten how reasonable Price was in that debate… And I blogged on it. I should be more charitable. It’s really Hector Avalos I don’t like because of what he did to Guillermo Gonzalez.

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  5. A response to Hays, Manata, Engwer has been posted concerning my contribution to The Christian Delusion, the chapter on “The Cosmology of the Bible”:

    http://war-on-error.xanga.com/733769911/book-review-the-christian-delusion—ch-5-the-cosmology-of-the-bible-part-5/

    The response covers 100 or so questions raised by Triabloguers.

    I would suggest reading the chapter itself before reading The Infidel Delusion’s response and the counter-response above, because the Triabloguers do not engage with what the ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians and Hebrews wrote concerning cosmic geography.

    If someone would like to receive a paper copy of my chapter please contact me.

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