A Phony Conversion Story

Shadow To Light has posted a video that purports to be the conversion story of a man, David Wood, who says he grew up as an atheist.  It's a rather bizarre story.  He says that at the age of five years, he was told that his dog died, and his reaction was "So what?"  He became a criminal, and he had no boundaries, no care for other people, no reason he shouldn't steal from them, destroy their property, or even kill them.  Even when his friend was killed, he said "So what?"  And this, he wants us to believe, is because of his atheism.

Antony Flew - After the Conversion

In their snarky response to a blog post on Patheos by Bob Seidensticker (10 questions Christians must answer) that poses some issues worthy of consideration for theists, Manuel Alfonseca and Juan Carlos Nieto have posed some questions of their own for atheists in the Popular Science blog.  As I read their ten questions, it immediately became clear to me that these guys didn't take Seidenstricker's issues seriously.  Not only did they fail to answer any of his questions, but their response had an air of snarkiness and petulance that could be described as childish.  Most of their questions ended with something like, "Do you have scientific reasons to believe it, or do you believe it without reason? In other words, is it a dogma for you?".

I won't bother answering all their questions, mainly because I think they are too easily answered.  This is mostly due to the fact that these theists (like many theists) don't really understand what materialism entails or what materialists believe.  Instead, I would like to focus on one question in particular that they pose:

One of the most important atheist philosophers of the twentieth century (Antony Flew, 1923-2010) changed his mind in 2004 and published a book [5] explaining the reasons for his decision. Have you read Flew’s book, or  will you take care not to read it, so that your atheistic convictions won’t be in danger?

In answer to that, I will say that I hadn't previously read Flew's book, There is a God - How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, but I obtained a copy and read it.  It's a short book.  No, I wasn't afraid that it would endanger my "atheistic convictions".  I was genuinely interested in understanding Flew's reasons for coming to believe in God.  I was especially interested to know if there was some particular idea that he had or some new information that he came across that he found to be convincing.  Perhaps I too, would see why he found it so convincing.

Theistic Arguments Series:  Anselm's Ontological Argument

The following is an outline of Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God:

    1. We conceive of God as a being than which no greater can be conceived.
    2. This being than which no greater can be conceived either exists in the mind alone or both in the mind and in reality.
    3. Assume that this being than which no greater can be conceived exists in the mind alone.
        a. Existing both in the mind and in reality is greater than existing solely in the mind.
        b. This being, existing in the mind alone, can also be conceived to exist in reality.
        c. This being existing in the mind alone is not therefore the being than which no greater can be conceived.
    4. Therefore, this being than which no greater can be conceived exists in reality as well as exists in the mind.

Dawkins:  "Who made God?"

In response to my previous post, Victor Reppert criticizes Dawkins' answer to the Cosmological Argument this way:

Now, I think there is further discussion which might develop the "Who made God" response to more sophisticated version of the Cosmological Arguments, but a popular kind of response to arguments like Aquinas's and Craig's, sometimes given in intro philosophy classes, makes it seem as if they somehow didn't think to ask the question "Who made God," a question asked by most grade school children.

Now one thing I should point out right away is the fact that Dawkins is not a philosopher, but more importantly, his target audience was not philosophers.  He was addressing real people who may have been brought up in a religious environment, hearing the common arguments for God's existence.

Historical Arguments for God

I read this article by Peter Kreeft with eight historical arguments for God, in the hopes that it would be based on evidence, and not just another piece of simple-minded apologetic clap-trap.  I should have known better.

Theistic Arguments Series: On the Impossibility of an Actual Infinite

One of the key concepts found in some theological arguments such as the Kalam Cosmological Argument is the assertion that the universe must have had a beginning, which is based on the notion that it is logically impossible for an "actual infinite" to exist.  Theists have made numerous defenses of this assertion.  It appeared in my previous post, where my interlocutor said:

This is a metaphysically untenable position. Why can't there be an eternal succession of people? Well, person one (p1) is going to have to give birth to them-self before they can give birth to p2. How can p1 give birth to them-self if they don't exist. Since contingent p1 can't be accounted for contingent p2...pn are not accounted for, and so the whole chain fails to exist.

Theistic Arguments Series: Leibniz’s Cosmological Argument

In my previous post, I made several points about deductive arguments, briefly summarized here, with some additional discussion:

    1.  The argument should be stated precisely, using clearly defined terms. 
   
Imprecisely defined terms are the cause of endless debate over whether an argument succeeds.  They lead to equivocation.  Often, people will disagree about whether a particular statement is true because they don't interpret the statement in the same way.  I find that this situation can go unrecognized, and the parties to the debate end up talking past each other, without realizing that a statement means something different to each of them, and this can affect their view of the logical validity of the argument.

Theistic Arguments Series: On Philosophical Reasoning

Deductive reasoning is a mechanical process.  Logical processes consist of following a well-defined set of rules.  It doesn't take human intelligence to perform a series of logical operations to arrive at some conclusion.  There are machines that perform these processes without ever thinking about what they are doing.  They simply start with some known propositional conditions (which may be regarded as premises), apply the rules of logic, and arrive at the inevitable result that is entailed by the starting conditions.  For example,
    (proposition) Socrates is a man.
    (proposition) All men are mortal.
Then, by performing a series of operations that follow established rules of logic,
    (conclusion) Socrates is a mortal.
A computer is quite capable of performing these logical operations.  Once the conditions are established, the conclusion is a necessary consequence, regardless of the means used to perform those operations.

Theistic Arguments Series:  Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism

This is part of a series of posts on arguments commonly used by theists.  Because I am a naturalist, I believe that all arguments that purport to prove theism or disprove naturalism are flawed.  Plantigna's argument against naturalism is no exception.  Saints and Sceptics recently summarized it this way: