All posts by Wintery Knight

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Triablogue guys write massive response to “The Christian Delusion”

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.

Upcoming debate on morality: Matt Flannagan vs. Ray Bradley

News of an upcoming debate featuring Matt Flannagan from MandM.

Details:

Raymond Bradley and Matthew Flannagan will debate the topic “Is God the Source of Morality? Is it rational to ground right and wrong in commands issued by God?”

The debate will be held at the University of Auckland on Monday 2 August from 7-9pm in “The Centennial” 260 – 098 OGGB (the bottom level of the Business School) on 12 Grafton Rd, Auckland City.

Bradley is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy with areas of specialty in Philosophical Logic, Metaphysics, Logical Atomism; he has previously debated William Lane Craig, Edward Blaiklock and many other Christian scholars and describes himself as an older generation “new atheist”.

Matthew FlannaganFlannagan is an Auckland based Philosopher and Theologian with areas of specialty in Philosophy of Religion, Ethics and Theology; he has previously debated Bill Cooke, Zoe During and, of course, writes for this blog.

The format of the debate will be as follows:

  • Dr Bradley: Opening Comments [20 min]
  • Dr Flannagan: Opening Comments [20 min]
  • Dr Bradley: Reply to Dr Flannagan [10 min]
  • Dr Flannagan: Reply to Dr Bradley[10 min]
  • Dr Bradley: Closing Comments [7 min]
  • Dr Flannagan: Closing Comments [7 min]
  • Questions from the floor: [30 min]

And here is an article on the thought of the atheist Ray Bradley by Glenn Peoples. Glenn’s post is short and to the point – he excerpts the main argument from a post by Bradley against the moral argument and shows why it has no force.

And you can read more about William Lane Craig’s debate with Ray Bradley on Hell, too.

Does the kalam cosmological argument tell us anything about God?

Here’s a quick video on the kalam argument.

Just a short video since I am kind of on vacation this week. I’m away meeting that young lady that I write about often, after 8 months of getting to know her through Skype! I’l bet you all want to hear about that instead!