What Is a Hyper-Skeptic?

The Christian blog run by apologist Bill Pratt is called Tough Questions Answered.  This blog appears to consist mainly of discussion and commentary about biblical matters - how to understand or interpret various biblical stories and passages, reconciliation of apparent discrepancies, etc.  While it's not unusual for sites like this to contain all manner of hare-brained religious apologia, I don't usually get too excited about such things.  But it also includes some articles that relate to science and skepticism.  And that tends to get my attention.  I like to see if the apologist takes an even-handed view of things that are based on facts and evidence.  One of his articles that might help me to answer that question is called You Might Be a Hyper-Skeptic of Christianity If ...  Pratt introduces it by noting that not all skeptics are alike.  A skeptic can be fair-minded, or he can be what Pratt calls a hyper-skeptic, "someone who will not ever consider any evidences, arguments, or reasoning given for Christianity". 

Testing For the Supernatural

Christian apologist Bill Pratt is confused.  That's not just my judgment - it's what he says himself, in an article called Can Science Test for the Supernatural?  The issue in his mind is whether science can test for "the supernatural".  Pratt's puzzlement is a somewhat sarcastic response to the apparent contradictory stances of various members of the scientific community regarding the limits of scientific inquiry.  His real goal is to show hypocrisy among skeptics.  He notes:

Those who hold a naturalistic worldview (the natural world is all that exists) seem to be divided on this subject.  Some naturalists deny that science can ever be used to test the existence of God and others affirm that science can test for the supernatural and that those tests have all turned out negative.  Still others, like evolutionary scientist Donald Prothero, appear to hold both views at the same time.  - Pratt

To be sure, there is a certain amount of disagreement among religionists as to whether science can say anything at all about supernatural claims.  But perhaps aside from a few accommodationists, not so much on the part of the scientific community.  You just have to understand what they are saying.  But in the interest of scoring a point for his side, Pratt seems to be deliberately obtuse in his analysis.

God's Perfect Justice

In the commentary on my previous post, there was some discussion about what it means for God to be perfectly good or benevolent.  Most theists like to include some notion of justice in their definition, as a way to explain why God would mete out punishment for sin.  God is perfectly loving and merciful, but at the same time, he is just.  He must exact payment for our sins in a perfectly fair and impartial manner.  But justice seems to be in conflict with mercy.  In perusing the posts on Cross Examined, I came across an article that is relevant to this issue.  A commenter had noted

Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is getting LESS than what you deserve. Take your pick.

How can God be both just and merciful at the same time?  Al Serrato attempts to answer the question by explaining that God is just because he demands payment for sin, but he is also merciful because he allows someone else (Jesus) to pay the price for us.  But I have some problems with that explanation.

Does Evil Disprove Atheism?

Frank Turek presents a response to the Problem of Evil that attempts to turn the issue around, and make it an argument against atheism rather than an argument against God.  As you know, the Problem of Evil (POE) argues that the existence of evil in our world is logically inconsistent with the properties of omniscience, omnipotence, and omni-benevolence that are usually attributed to God.  Therefore God (if he exists) cannot have all three of those attributes, given the existence of evil.  The POE does not prove the non-existence of God, but it does present a strong logical argument that God cannot be what most Christians claim he is.  Most atheists find this argument quite compelling.  Theists, on the other hand, tend to explain away evil as something that God has no control over, not because he isn't omnipotent, but for other reasons that typically involve the free will of man.  I don't think Plantinga or any other religious philosopher has made a rebuttal of the argument that truly addresses the issue in a satisfying way.  That's why it is generally considered to be one of the most formidable arguments against God.  And that's why some theists, like Turek, prefer to duck the problem altogether.

Picking Cherries For God

He's at it again.  Over at Shadow To Light, Mikey has smeared Jerry Coyne with an accusation that has absolutely no basis whatsoever.  He says that Coyne is offended by PZ Myers' use of cherry-picking to distort the message of a "New Atheist" (Steve Pinker), by making the liberal Pinker seem to be part of the alt-right, but would happily agree with same tactics being used against a theist.  Of course, Mikey offers not a single shred of evidence to support this claim.  Because for people like Mikey, the truth has nothing to do with the anti-atheist narrative he is trying to purvey - that is, unless he can find an isolated fact that is useful to him.

Craig On Original Sin

In my previous post, I discussed the absurdity of the Christian doctrine of atonement.  It does not seem reasonable to think that someone else should be able to alleviate me of moral responsibility for my sins by taking the punishment upon himself.  But that is exactly what Christians believe Jesus did by dying on the cross.  A closely related issue is the idea that we should assume guilt and bear moral responsibility, subject to God's punishment, for the sins of our ancestors.  This is the Christian doctrine of original sin.  It holds that Adam and Eve sinned by their own free will, and the guilt for that sin is passed on to all of their progeny.  Furthermore, their sinful nature is also passed to the rest of us.  So according to the Christian dogma, each and every one of us is guilty the sin of our ancestor, and we are born as "fallen" beings, which implies that we are compelled by our nature to commit still more sinful acts.

Ray Comfort's Religious Babbling

I came across an article by Ray Comfort that purports to explain why the killing of Jesus as payment for the sins of man makes sense.  The question that had been posed to him is this:

I would like to ask you a couple of relevant questions pertaining to the ‘sacrifice’ of Jesus and its purpose. Please logically explain why an omnipotent, omniscient, and omni benevolent God would need to sacrifice Himself (as Jesus) to Himself (God) in order to forgive man of sins against Him (God)? The entire premise seems totally absurd. - Chuck

This is a question that has been asked many times by people who are trying to make sense of the most fundamental tenets of Christianity, when ordinary logic doesn't seem to suffice.  If you can step back from any ideological attachment to those religious tenets, and take an objective look at them, it really is a bizarre thing to say that God demands this sacrifice.  Perhaps Comfort can shed some light on it where others have failed.  Let's hear what he has to say.

Rational Discussion With a Thomist

In my previous post, I attempted to show two things.  The first of these is that I understand a key concept that is part of the Thomistic cosmological argument - that is, what is meant by an "essentially ordered" causal series (or EOS).  This has been an area of contention, because they insist that I don't get it, and I am not alone in my ignorance - many atheists are similarly painted with this same brush, regardless of whether there is any truth to it.  The second thing is that regardless my acceptance of the meaning of this concept, it is still inconsistent with physical reality, and therefore, I reject the reality of the concept.  In response to this, Martin was good enough to make another post of his own to clarify his position and open up the topic for further discussion.  I congratulate him for his willingness to discuss something that has divided us for such a long time, and to try to clear the air in a rational manner.  To my surprise, I found that we couldn't even agree on something that I thought was already in agreement.

Theistic Arguments: Essentially Ordered Series

I have been in a revived discussion with Martin, The author of the Thomistic philosophy blog known as Rocket Philosophy.  The discussion first began three years ago on my post where I was talking about infinite series, and WL Craig's illogical "proof" that such a thing can't exist.  Theists make claims of that sort to bolster their theistic arguments, assuming that there must be a first cause or a first mover.  For the record, while I agree that there cannot be an infinite set of physical things within the confines of our finite universe, there is no reason in logic or mathematics that an infinite set of things cannot exist in principle, and Craig's argument (based on mathematical logic) is both naive and incorrect.  But the comments following my article eventually led to the topic of "Essentially Ordered Series", and Martin entered the fray, trying to explain to me what that is, and that I am exasperatingly stupid because I couldn't understand the concept.  Martin later made comments to that effect on his own blog, like this:

Another time I was trying to get skeppy, again, to just UNDERSTAND what is meant by "essentially ordered series" and he refuse to allow his brain to go that far. Carrying on and on about "science!!!!" and how "science!!!!" has refuted essentially ordered series. Here is that thread: http://theskepticzone.blogspot.com/2014/09/theistic-arguments-series-on.html - Martin

It is my contention that Martin is so stuck on his medieval Thomistic philosophy that he refuses to take, or even to attempt to understand, a view that is more consistent with modern science.  Anyway, I stayed out of the discussion at his blog until just recently, and neither of us has budged in our position.  In light of that, I thought it would be worthwhile to provide a more complete explanation of my own understanding of the concept of essentially ordered series, and why it is shown to be meaningless in the context of modern science.

What Matters Is What's True

Richard Dawkins, discussing what motivates religious belief, famously said:

Who cares what you feel like?  Who cares what feels good?  Who cares what makes you feel comforted?  Who cares what helps you sleep at night?  What matters is what's true. - Richard Dawkins

Religionists don't care what motivates their belief, or perhaps it's the case that they willfully ignore it.  But they take great umbrage at the idea that a non-believer could lay any claim to caring about what is true, because their faith tells them that Truth™ belongs exclusively to themselves.  This is a dogmatic assertion.  Don't bother trying to bring facts to the table.  Facts have nothing to do with it.  Reality has nothing to do with it.  To a militant religionist like Mikey at Shadow To Light, an atheist's relationship with the truth is "slippery".  But his own relationship with the truth is taken for granted, because God.  Mikey speculates that the only reason an atheist would place any value on truth is because he comes from a culture with a religious history that values truth.  So the first lie in his article appears in the second sentence.