Darwin’s religious beliefs

The conventional wisdom is that Charles Darwin was a Christian whose scientific discoveries led him away from God.  But does the evidence support that view? From Theist, Agnostic, Atheist: Will the Real Charles Darwin Please Stand Up?:
Some , like Alberto Kornblihtt, rather naively claim, “Darwin believed in God and his body is buried in Westminster Abbey.”  The [...]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?

Carl Sagan famously uttered the title, sans question mark.  I’d say he is in the right direction, as a corollary to Ockham’s Razor.  Things that are especially unusual or impactful deserve more scrutiny.
But I prefer Greg Koukl’s take, which is that extraordinary claims require adequate evidence or justification.  Just because the Bible makes claims of miracles doesn’t [...]

A classically poor atheistic argument

PZ Myers, one of the “New Atheists” (just like the old ones except rude and lacking reasoning skills) plays the same tricks that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and others do.   Richard Dawkins went on the radio show of Hugh Hewitt, who  Myers considers to be a “far right radio wingnut” and a “ridiculous puffed-up blowhard of [...]

Ray Comfort and the banana video

While seeking to give an example of the design of the universe, evangelist Ray Comfort mistakenly claimed that bananas were always in their current form.  He later apologized, formally and publicly. 
But many of the New Atheists can’t overlook this apparently unforgivable mistake.  One atheistic site crowed as follows:
The “original” banana was short and stubby and [...]

Dan Brown’s predictable story

Bad answers from Christians don’t disprove Christianity any more than bad answers from atheists prove that there is a God.
Dan Brown is the author of The Da Vinci Code (and other works), which would have been a typical work of anti-religious fiction had he not claimed that it was historical fiction.  Either that was a [...]

We have a winner . . .

. . .in the contest to give away a copy of Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl: Matthew from iPandora is the winner!
My youngest daughter picked a number at random to determine the winner.  She is part way through the book herself and knows a few of the tactics (Full disclosure: [...]

Atheist debater objects to his own book being quoted

Wow, this is one of the more bizarre debating events I’ve heard of.  See the video of Debate 101: the Schooling of Dan Barker.
Dan Barker has made a career out of being a  former minister.  The skeptics love guys like him and Bart Ehrman.  I mean, you can easily ignore all the people who convert [...]

Why did Antony Flew abandon atheism?

Go read What made the most famous atheist philosopher abandon atheism? « Wintery Knight Blog.  A snippet:
What Christians should take away from this
Feminized-postmodern-relativist-universalist Christians need to understand what actually works to change people’s minds: arguments and evidence. Converting a person to Christianity can only be done by establishing the truth of Christianity. Any appeal to [...]

“Christian pluralism” – self-refuting, oxymoronic and arrogant

I was searching for the quote at the bottom about Islam and came across this post.  I decided that since I’d been analyzing the many problems with false teachers in the church that this would be good to re-post with a brief update.  This is more subtle than usual for me (heh) but I think [...]

The “Bronze Age Mythology” fallacy

A common tactic from New Atheists is to use the term bronze age mythology to dismiss Biblical views, as if the time period when truth claims were documented can be used to categorically refute them.
When I see that comment I typically point out that the age of an idea does not impact its truthfulness.  In [...]

Euthyphro’s Dilemma

Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason has thorough response to Euthyphro’s Dilemma, which asks,
Is an act right because God says it’s so, or does God say it’s so because it’s right?
The question is used by skeptics, such as the late Bertrand Russell, to posit that Christianity must be false because either choice would disagree with [...]

Quick responses to some guy’s “Top 10 problems with Christianity”

I threw out a few quick responses to this top 10 list.  I’m actually a little sympathetic in that many Christians offer bad answers that fuel the atheists’ arguments.
Biblical literalism is inconsistent with scientific knowledge.
Straw man. Check Genesis for the number of stars, for example (countless stars are referenced several times,  not the 1,100 most [...]

Atheist kids camp

[Times Online]
GIVE Richard Dawkins a child for a week’s summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life.
The author of The God Delusion is helping to launch Britain’s first summer retreat for non-believers, where children will have lessons in evolution and sing along to John Lennon’s Imagine.
The five-day camp in Somerset [...]

Got questions?

Marie reminded me of a link on my blogroll to Got Questions?  I recommend it to skeptics and believers.  The answers seem to be well thought out and readable.  Go do some browsing.  I’ll wait here.
Do you have a question about God, Jesus, the Bible, or theology?
Have you ever needed help understanding a Bible verse or [...]

Does proof deny faith? No.

I received a pleasant email from someone who asserted that offering evidence for God’s existence somehow would nullify the Christian faith.
I read some of your comment on this blog…
http://dawkinswatch.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/creatres-that-defy-evolution
pretty cool. most of the creationists I know can’t actually hold up a decent argument about their beliefs, but you held your corner pretty well. (granted, I [...]

Certainty

I’m revising and re-running this in (dis)honor of the commenter who trotted out the straw man about the “supposed certainties of conservative-traditional Christianity.” Eek! 
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It seems I have have acquired a little Internet ”fan club” that likes to dismiss me for being so certain about things.  I can’t miss the irony of them being certain that [...]