William Lane Craig has a newish, 30-page essay online, which you can read in PDF or HTML. He interacts with Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion. Craig makes five arguments for God’s existence: (1) the cosmological argument (from contingency); (2) the kalam cosmological argument (based on the beginning of the universe); (3) the moral argument (based upon objective moral values and duties); (4) the teleological argument (from fine-tuning); (5) the ontological argument (from the possibility of God’s existence to his actuality). So if you’re looking for a concise introdu...

This entry is part 8 of 8 in the series Detached From RealityUpdate: I have edited this post to omit the name of a person that I incorrectly placed in Dr. Caner’s camp. My sincerest apologies for this mistake. Over the weekend, this story broke, and it just makes the whole Ergun Caner scandal that much weirder. Almost immediately, Dr. Caner’s minions came out from the woodwork and said it couldn’t be their precious Dr. Caner who did this. It “had” to be someone out to hurt him. That someone must be really desperate to drop $500+ just do damage the reputation of a ...

This entry is part 2 of 8 in the series Detached From RealityOn June 29th Tim Rogers over at SBC Today posted “To Clear from Accusation or Blame“, a post attempting to explain why he used the word “exonerated“ when describing Liberty University’s press release about removing Ergun Caner from his position as President of their seminary. It is a very interesting read and certainly qualifies as using some of the tactics outlined previously. The first three paragraphs are Mr. Rogers complaining about the response he got when using “exonerated” and itR...

This entry is part 1 of 8 in the series Detached From RealityOver the course of the Ergun Caner scandal, there have been some who are so blind to truth (i.e. that which corresponds to reality) that they delude themselves into actually believing that Dr. Caner didn’t lie. How they come to this conclusion is really remarkable and a very good lesson in how not to apply logic and reason so as to achieve your goal of believing what you want. A few of their tactics: - Words? Bleh. We’ll make’em mean what we want’em to mean. Never-mind them fancy contraptions like dictionari...

Imagine this scene: Sitting in a room with no one but you and a friend you slap them on the back while they are not looking and act like you did not do it. They turn and say, “I know you did that.” You reply, “I did not.” “Then who did it?” they respond (thinking they have settled the issue with this one question). You say, “A guy ran into the room and slapped you and then ran out.” They look at you like you are crazy. “Look!” you respond to their skepticism, “The door is not locked. It is obvious that someone could have come in...