As a person who studies theology and philosophy I have, over the years, read some brilliant skeptics; John Mackie and Paul Draper come to mind. I also have become reasonably informed about the debate over theism in the literature. Consquently, I have a good idea when the issues are being caricatured. Unfortunately rebuttal of a […]
Entries Tagged as 'Philosophy of Religion'
Caricature at no god zone
August 1st, 2007 Comments Off on Caricature at no god zone
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Hell Pizza · Libertarianism · William Alston
The Dawkins Delusion
July 31st, 2007 35 Comments
A friend sent me this this morning: This is great, witty satire. I particularly like the parody of Dawkins’ “Who made God” argument. Dr Terry Tommyrot addresses the question of whether science can explain the existence of Dawkins’ books without postulating the existence of an intelligent author, Richard Dawkins. Tommyrot asks, “If Dawkins designed this […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Atheism · Humour · New Atheists · Richard Dawkins · Terry Tommyrot
The Rationalists: Round Two
July 30th, 2007 4 Comments
In an earlier post I mentioned the schism within The New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists (NZARH) between former spokesperson Paul Litterick and current spokesperson Dr Bill Cooke. NZARH contend that Dr Cooke was a Professor at The State University of New York at Buffalo. Paul Litterick maintains this is false. Litterick claims Cooke was […]
Tags: Bill Cooke · NZARH · Paul Litterick · Rationalists
Poisoning peoples minds
July 3rd, 2007 Comments Off on Poisoning peoples minds
I hate the new anti smoking ads. I am not a smoker, I do not advise that anyone smoke nor do I approve of smoking. As I see it we have a duty to respect not only other people but ourselves, as beings made in the image of God. For this reason we should look […]
Tags: Advertising · Bad Reasoning · Smoking
The Meta-Ethical Argument for Christian Theism: A Response to Richard Chappell
July 3rd, 2007 15 Comments
if we ask what God would have commanded in counterfactual situations we will get contradictory answers.
Tags: Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Richard Chappell · Robert Adams · Thomas Carson
When Rationalists Implode
July 2nd, 2007 7 Comments
In 2002 I (Matt) publicly debated Dr Bill Cooke from the New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists (NZARH). I enjoyed the debate immensely and am confident that I won it. No one whom I know who has watched the debate disagrees with me on this. I was surprised at the time how weakly the arguments […]
Tags: Atheism · Bill Cooke · Craig Young · NZARH · Paul Litterick · Rationalists
What’s Wrong with Whaling?
February 17th, 2007 3 Comments
With governments refusing to help ships that engage in it and ‘peace’ activists apparently willing to ram ships to prevent it, one assumes that whaling is a grave moral evil. It is, apparently, obviously so. Unfortunately, I fail to see why. How is killing a whale any different from fishing for marlin or shark or […]
Tags: Abortion · Peter Singer · Whaling

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.




