Analyzing Christianity
Why I’m Going to Spend a Week Ripping “God’s Not Dead” to Pieces.
Here’s why we’re going to be talking about “God’s Not Dead” for a while.
Analyzing Christianity
The Handbook: Recognizing an “Argument From X” Attempt
We’re going to be heading back to God’s Not Dead next week, but before we do that, I wanted to finish up something we were talking about last time we covered the Handbook for the Recently Deconverted: one of Christians’ very favorite apologetics tactics, the Argument from X. A while ago, Read more
Analyzing Christianity
The Cult of Before Stories: Heather Barwick, Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth
I wish it could shock me anymore, seeing a family ripped apart by religion. It happens constantly in this modern age–and will probably get worse, really. But this story touched me particularly today because it hit a few all-too-familiar notes in that discordant jangle that is the Cult of Before Stories.
Analyzing Christianity
The Handbook: Wishful Thinking in Apologetics.
Today we’re talking about wishful apologetics: those arguments that ache and yearn for an idealized form of Christianity. Special Guest: C.S. Lewis.
Analyzing Christianity
The Vast Comfort of Literalism
Ever wonder how someone converts into fundamentalist or evangelical Christianity? Here’s how I ended up there.
Analyzing Christianity
The Handbook: Science- and History-Based Apologetics.
One popular form of apologetics is the attempt to demonstrate the veracity of the Bible. This is probably the easiest form of apologetics to dismiss, as well.
Analyzing Christianity
The Handbook: Apologetics: Pascal, Ontological, Cosmological
Some of these arguments rise to the level of apologetics classics. Others are painfully cringeworthy modern inventions that could only exist in a Christian population that is vastly deteriorated from loftier standards. I’ll show you three of those arguments today–and how you’re likely to encounter them in the wild, so to speak!
Analyzing Christianity
The Handbook: An Overview of the Apologetics Field, and Its (Hopeful) End
We’re about to plunge into actual apologetics works and examine their authors’ major ideas and claims. Before we do that, let’s just real quick-like run through the field as a whole so we’re all on the same page. I’m sure it didn’t take long at all for the earliest Christians Read more
Analyzing Christianity
My Breath Caught in My Throat.
In the wake of the murder of an atheist blogger at the hands of religious extremists, we examine the kinship of extremism in Christianity and Islam.
Analyzing Christianity
The Handbook: The Second Big Mistake Apologists Make
Last time we talked about apologists, we talked about their first big mistake: that they start with a conclusion and find some kind of logic that will get them to that conclusion. That’s called arguing top-down. In bottom-up arguing, one starts with observations and measurements and builds the argument around Read more