We’ve all heard the slogan that atheism is superior to theism because of all the atrocities committed in the name of religion. If you flick through the pages of the new-atheist publications by the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens, Loftus, Harris, et al you’ll probably find some version of this assertion in each. Setting aside the […]
Entries Tagged as 'Bad Reasoning'
Weight Watchers and the Historical Atrocities Argument
July 8th, 2009 6 Comments
Tags: Atheism · Christian History · Historical Atrocities · Religious History · Thinking Matters · Weight Watchers
More on Christians and Bigotry
November 30th, 2008 13 Comments
Matt’s post on the practice of throwing the bigot label at Christians as a method to silence debate got me thinking. Some of my thinking came out in the comment I wrote on Half Done and in Matt’s comment in the original post but I still feel I have more to say. I’m someone who […]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Religion in Public Life
Why am I a Bigot?
November 26th, 2008 16 Comments
I am a Theologian with a strong background in Philosophy; apart from Philosophical Theology, my particular area of interest is Ethics. Given this, I often post my thoughts and reflections on moral issues of various persuasions on this blog. I have discussed the morality of warfare, whether it is sometimes permissible to lie, the morality […]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Ethics · Feticide · Homosexual Conduct · Religion in Public Life
Take Nobody’s Word for Anything – Especially Bob Brockie’s
October 3rd, 2008 3 Comments
In one of the definitive discussions of the issue, Philosophers Alvin Plantinga and Robert Pennock debated the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools of religiously pluralistic societies at the December 1998 meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association. [The following is a crude rendition of the issues in the debate – […]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Bob Brockie · Christian History · Faith and Reason · Science and Religion · Urban Myths
Self-Reference and Little-p philosophy
July 30th, 2008 3 Comments
I am a closet “ego surfari” (to coin one of Maverick Philosopher’s phrases); I enter my name into Google to see where my name comes up and what people are writing about me. It is an old hang up that goes back to my student politics days at the University of Waikato when Matt and […]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Little p philosophy
Of course I think I’m right!
July 18th, 2008 3 Comments
I find it really frustrating when I encounter someone who throws the “you think you’re right” accusation at me and assumes that this obviously makes me arrogant and that I should therefore back down and run away ashamed. I am sick of it. I will not be made to feel guilty for thinking my opinion is […]
Tags: Bad Reasoning
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
The Inconsistent, Condescending, Paternalism of Left-Wing Feminism
February 25th, 2009 26 Comments
What do these two pictures have in common? The Hand Mirror oppose both as forms of oppression against women. In the first one the woman is being “belittled”, “denigrated”, made the subject of “idiot chauvinism“, in the second, the woman’s clothing choice is “silly” and her “sexuality is being controlled by her father“. Now look […]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Feminism · The Hand Mirror