Evangelical leaders are forcing their followers into a showdown, one that it can ill-afford at this point. That Chick tract we’ve been discussing, “Dark Dungeons,” is a prime example of this idea. I’ve been using the term “Cruel Dilemma” for a while, and it seems appropriate now to bring it up–since it’s part of why I see Christianity losing so many people these days.
Once we think we’ve weathered all the manipulations Christians throw at apostates, along comes the Magic Christian: One who is totally convinced that ‘God’ told them how to resolve every issue we have with their religion.
Recently I ran into this debate between David Marshall and Richard Carrier regarding whether or not belief in Christianity is “reasonable.” It got me thinking about apologetics generally, and about this new name specifically because I’d never even heard of him till now. Today I want to talk about how apologetics plays into right-wing Christians’ distrust of education and credentials, and what David Marshall’s brand of apologetics represents in the religion.
It’s amazing to me that Christians can take a book compiled over thousands of years with dozens of mostly-anonymous authors, a book of (revised) history and (imagined) science, of folk magic and supposedly-divine intervention, of petty racism and soaring nationalism, of beautiful poetry and stunning brutality, of–yes–transcendent language and startling insight at times, and reduce it down to sound bites they can select, warp, and then fling at their pleasure to score points against those they view as inferior opponents. To me it seems extremely disrespectful for a Christian to treat their holy book in such a simplistic and reductionist way, but I see it all the time regardless.
Logical Christians care a lot more about being correct and soothing that cognitive dissonance than they do about anything their Savior is supposed to have actually told them to do. And now they’ve got metaphysics to do that with.
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
Today we’re talking about wishful apologetics: those arguments that ache and yearn for an idealized form of Christianity. Special Guest: C.S. Lewis.
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
Way too many Christians talk a very big game about having a monopoly on morality. They even frequently claim that non-Christians either lack the capacity for morality or are aping Christianity’s monopoly on it. But they’re wrong. The worst moral failings aren’t found in the Bible. No, for that dubious honor we must look to the people who use the Bible to excuse their own moral failings.
Hi folks! Hope your weekend is going swimmingly so far. We’ve been looking at a new apologetics book by Shane Hayes, The End of Unbelief, which bills itself as “a new approach to the question of God.” Today we’re actually going to get into the argument he thinks is the Read more