Randal Rauser's Blog, page 77

An argument for beheading or against lethal injection

This article is based on my 2013 article on state-beheading. Read the background here.

Beheading is intolerably cruel.
Beheading is less cruel than lethal injection.
Therefore, lethal injection is intolerably cruel.
If a mode of capital punishment is intolerably cruel then it ought to be illegal.
Therefore, lethal injection ought to be illegal.

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Atheists who poison the well by calling things magic

Have you noticed how atheists often like to refer to theistic accounts of various aspects of reality as “magic”? It’s an irritating practice, a juvenile case of poisoning the well. And it’s even more irritating when a professional philosopher like Stephen Law engages in the practice. Here’s the summary of my recent twitter exchange on the topic. (Note, I have linked the original tweet if you want to follow up on Twitter. If there are further tweets in the conversation I won’t be including them below.)

Randal: If I had a dollar for every “skeptic” who objected to the resurrection of Jesus by saying “Dead people don’t rise”, I’d have enough money for an Alaska cruise. I mean, don’t these folks understand the concept of a miracle?

Stephen Law: You see how this can be said, with similar effect, about belief in fairies tending our gardens, Santa delivering our presents, etc.? I mean, don’t these folk understand concept of a magical being? I know you say we shouldn’t compare belief in God/fairies but seems right here.

Randal: Your comment is a classic example of the poisoning the well fallacy. Atheist apologists like yourself use the word “magic” not to appeal to a concise, clear, technical term but to play to the peanut gallery. It’s simply juvenile.

Stephen: not at all. by magic i mean powers etc trascending and free of naturalistic constraints eg natural laws.

Randal: I see, so if a type IV civilization (Kardashev scale) used their technology to create our universe and subsequently interact within it, you think they use “magic”?

Stephen: From our perspective their power would seem magic but I’d say no as their powers don’t transcend the natural laws of theirs.

Randal: But if they would transcend *our* natural laws, so it’s “magic”, right?

Stephen: I didn’t say ‘our’.

Randal: I see, so “magic” only applies to concepts that transcend all universes and laws of nature, not just that in our universe. Like I said, poisoning the well. Say, do you also call Platonic exemplification “magic”?

Stephen: depends – I think that a nec condition of ‘magic’ is that it transcends naturalistic constraints. that leaves open whether Platonic heaven is magic as I don’t consider the condition sufficient…

Randal: If the universe (or a vast multiverse) just exists as a brute fact, that transcends naturalistic constraints. Very magical!

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The Problem of Atheist Anti-Intellectualism

A couple of days ago, I got in a Twitter back-and-forth with Nate Phelps. Mr. Phelps is the son of Fred Phelps, the infamous fundamentalist pastor of Westboro Baptist Church, a tiny cultic congregation that has earned infamy for hating on every one that is not part of the group. Nate Phelps left Westboro years ago and has long been an atheist. In this exchange, he took issue with a tweet in which I criticized atheists who compare God to a garden fairy.

The Conversation

Randal: When an atheist compares belief in God to belief in a “garden fairy,” what he/she is really saying is “I don’t understand the concept of God and I don’t care to.”

Nate Phelps: Hogwash

Randal: You do realize that your response is not helping your case, don’t you?

Nate: As soon as you broadly assign a motivation or angle to every atheist’s use of such an analogy, it’s the only logical response. It’s a lazy dismissal of a legitimate assertion. If the analogy between belief in god and belief in fairies is inaccurate, challenge it w/evidence.

Randal: I have done that. It’s just as stupid as a Christian saying that atheists believe human beings evolved from “goo”. These are equal and opposite demonstrations of execrable ignorance:

Nate: Again, that some atheists may make such an assertion from “ignorance”, to broad brush it is lazy and unproductive. You know there are many atheists who arrived at the fairy analogy after serious, thoughtful immersion in a religious system.

Randal: That’s much better than “hogwash”. Regardless, the point of the original tweet is that comparing the concept of God to a fairy is fatuous, the comparisons silly (e.g. two invisible fanciful creatures) or simply false (e.g. when people grow up they leave behind fairies/God).

Nate: Why is it pointless to make that comparison. The lack of evidence for either is the same. Are you assigning greater validity to the god claim simply because it persists into adulthood? Or is maintaining an open line of communication so valued as to abide a vacuous claim?

Randal: “The lack of evidence for either is the same.” It’s standard in philosophy, as in other fields, to ground your opinions to your knowledge of the field. So how familiar are you with the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, phil of religion, etc?

Nate: I grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church.

Randal: I know. I met you when I debated John Loftus in Calgary back in 2013. I’m sorry about that. But what insight does growing up in that cultic climate give you to contemporary philosophy (the topic of my question)? None, I presume.

Nate: Bringing me back to my question. Since humans have developed a sophisticated system of philosophy on a topic, I’m obliged to give it a level of respect knowing full well its unsustainable? Such an argument is just another avoidance tactic to the salient ? of proof of your god.

Randal: Sorry, are you saying that you can ignore a field of academic discourse because, so you claim, all the academics in that field are engaged in an “avoidance tactic”? Is that what you’re claiming? And if not, what are you saying?

Nate: Simply put, studying god’s don’t make them real. Nor does it venerate or protect the subject from criticism. Finally, using a god/fairy analogy doesn’t necessarily speak to the validity or subject knowledge of the user.

Randal: Nobody claimed that studying a subject in and of itself makes the subject matter “real”. But I’m still wondering on what basis you can opine on a professional field of philosophy with which you are clearly unfamiliar? That sounds like pure anti-intellectualism.

Nate: It seems you’re determined to provide cover for an untenable position by cloaking it in “professional field of philosophy”. What evidence has that field produced proving the existence of god. Would the god/fairies analogy be bolstered if fairies had their own professional field?

Randal: Now you’re engaging in psychological projection on my motivations in an apparent attempt to deflect my question. So I’ll repeat: on what basis do you opine on a professional field of philosophy with which you are clearly unfamiliar? Do you also dismiss other academic fields?

Nate: Just those that don’t produce verifiable results. on what basis do you opine on a god?

Randal: I see. Please define “verifiable results” and explain which fields of philosophy meet your standard of producing verifiable results and which do not.

And that’s where the conversation ended.

The Debrief

As the conversation unfolds, Nate speaks dismissively of the field of philosophy of religion, but it is apparent that he doesn’t understand what that field of philosophy is about as he seems to treat it as a partisan exercise in Christian apologetics. That’s as ignorant as dismissing the field of political philosophy as a partisan exercise in Republican politics. But such as it is, these kinds of dismissive attitudes toward fields of discourse are, in my experience, all-to-common among atheists.

The essence of my debrief is captured in an observation courtesy of John Thatamanil: “if a theologian were to broadcast her convictions about molecular or evolutionary biology without some years of careful reading and study, she would be met with jeering laughter and summarily dismissed. Why then are uninformed atheists who have never read in theology exempt from similar derision? Sadly, every pedant believes himself entitled to his unearned convictions about religion.”

All I would add is that that which is true of theology is equally true of philosophy of religion. And it is surely ironic that people who talk so much about “reason” and “evidence” would show such little regard for reason and evidence in a case like this.

And that exhibits the problem of atheist anti-intellectualism.

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More Moral and Theological Dilemmas (with Trent Horn)

Here is a link to the latest episode of Trent Horn’s podcast in which Trent and I go back and forth on still more questions: “Do aliens need to be evangelized? What about lost tribes? Do Christians have to believe in the Devil?”

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Debating Moral Dilemmas with Trent Horn

Here is a link to my second dialogue/debate with Catholic apologist Trent Horn on his podcast The Counsel of Trent. And here is the description:

In this episode, Trent and Randal have a spirited discussion about whether they would want their children to be martyrs, whether we should be Christians if Christ did not rise from the dead, and whether they would rather be a “good Muslim” or an “evil Christian.”

Yo, listen up!

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Should Christian evangelists share their doubts during the altar call?

Today, my friend Steve (tireless critic of Ravi Zacharias) tweeted the following question to me:

“When a Christian is evangelizing, is it OK for them to say to their audience right before the invitation, “Full disclosure, I’m having some bothersome doubts about my religion today. But, organ player, let’s do it anyway, One-two-three-four ‘Just as I am ….,’?”

I replied:

“I’ve got mixed views on the revivalist tradition, but ask yourself this: if a police officer is talking a man off a ledge, and that day the officer is struggling with his own depression, do you want him to tell the man that he doubts life is meaningful?”

Needless to say, if a Christian evangelist believes that he/she is talking folks off the proverbial ledge (you know, the one just above the eternal abyss), should he/she really be sharing some doubts in that moment?

There is a time and place for expressing your doubts. Indeed, for many Christians, a healthy Christian life is defined by expressing those doubts. But this is neither the time nor the place.

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My New Book and Other Updates

You may have noticed that things have been quiet around here lately. Two weeks ago, I was teaching a one week class in apologetics. Last week, I was in San Diego for a couple of days. And in the midst of it all, I have been working on a new book. In fact, I got the idea for this book, a popular book on apologetics, just ten days ago, and I’ve been working diligently on it ever since. I hope to have a completed manuscript by the end of June.

In other news, I have a few more dialogues with Trent Horn that will be coming online shortly. I’ll be posting links to them here.

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Naturalism in a Tweet

Adapted from a tweet I posted this morning:

Christian: You call yourself a “naturalist”?

Naturalist: Yup!

Christian: And what is that?

Naturalist: Only nature exists.

Christian: And what is “nature”?

Naturalist: Whatever science says exists.

Christian: And what does science say exists?

Naturalist: That’s to be determined.

Christian: So what you believe exists is to be determined?

Naturalist: Er, I guess so.

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Does it degrade public discourse to call people buffoons, fools, and clowns?

This article consists of an exchange I had on Twitter with a fellow named “Jar Jar” (whether the surname is “Binks” is TBD). Here’s my initial offending tweet:

Remember when Trump said he hires only the best people? The sheer ignorance of #BenCarson is deeply distressing. #KatiePorter, on the other hand, is amazing. Once again, she puts a buffoon in his place.https://t.co/VpcA4u46FH

— Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) May 21, 2019

As an aside, if you are unfamiliar with Katie Porter, you need to change that. She is a former law professor who was elected in 2018 to the American House of Representatives where she serves for California’s 45th congressional district. And time and again, she has sliced-and-diced powerful people on cross-examination on behalf of the people of her district. This is what draining the swamp actually looks like. (Here’s another example of Katie Porter in action.)

Anyway, back to the story. I first had a couple of interactions with a fellow named Anthony before Jar Jar took over. The exchange is worth recounting, I think, because it illustrates different ways to construe a healthy public square. As I state in my final tweet, Jar Jar seems to maximize the value of being inoffensive while I believe that value must be balanced against the value to speak truth which may, at times, involve offense. (One final note: I correct a typo in one of my tweets.)

Anthony: Should he be secretary of housing and urban development? Maybe not? Calling a neurosurgeon a buffoon idk about that one

Randal: We’re not talking about a neurosurgeon. We’re talking about a former neurosurgeon who now serves as the head of HUD and yet confuses an REO with Oreo cookies.

Anthony: So once you leave a line of work the intelligence that line of work required vanished when he quit? In all fairness wow that hearing was..um..interesting

Randal: Apparently, skills in brain surgery don’t automatically transfer to Housing and Urban Development. Who knew?

Jar Jar: Calling someone a buffoon contributes to improving the quality of public discourse how?

Randal: Your question is based on a faulty premise.

Jar Jar: what faulty premise?

Randal: The premise that a term like “buffoon” (cf.”clown,” “fool,” etc.) is *intrinsically* harmful to public discourse. It isn’t.

Jar Jar: I have a hard time seeing how calling someone a buffoon does anything but make them and their supporters feel insulted…you don’t agree?

Randal: I’m not dialoguing with Ben Carson. Nor am I attempting to win over supporters of Ben Carson. I’m using a correct term to describe what he is in his current role and pointing out what a tragedy that is for the millions in public housing.

Jar Jar: That type of reasoning can be used to justify much of the caustic language on both the left and the right. both sides think they are correct and have given up dialoguing/attempting to win each other Over. Why not use a less insulting term?

Randal: Um, the *point* of using a term like “buffoon” or “fool” is used precisely because it carries the negative social stigma that accurately describes the person in question. Carson *should* be stigmatized. And somebody is *always* going to be offended. I’ve also often said that I believe Donald Trump is a clinical psychopath. Will his followers be offended? Sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that his public conduct matches onto the psychopathy checklist to a disturbing degree and I’d be dishonest if I didn’t call it out.

Jar Jar: so you’re arguing failure to Insult someone even if other, less inflammatory language is available makes you dishonest? It would seem to me the gentler responses would be more prudent if we want to improve public discourse

Randal: Presumably, you think Jesus was wrong to call his opponents whitewashed tombs, hypocrites, and a brood of vipers?

Jar Jar: jesus wasn’t trying to improve public discourse

Randal: Indeed, if what you have said is correct then you believe Jesus was “harming” public discourse. Correct?

Jar Jar: Indeed. I don’t think Jesus had much interest in the quality of public discourse. I’d argue that Suggesting He did is anachronistic

Randal: Are you a Christian?

Jar Jar: I’m agnostic

Randal: Okay. Regarding public discourse, you seem to value the maximization of inoffensive expression as an unqualified good. By contrast, I believe that the health of public discourse must also value truth-telling that may offend/alienate some parties, like Carson and his supporters.

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The Nature of Hell: A friendly debate

I just finished recording four podcasts with Catholic apologist Trent Horn in San Diego. As I speak, I’m preparing to board a plane to fly back to Edmonton.

In the interim, Trent just uploaded the first episode. It was also videotaped and apparently will be made available on YouTube. Here is the link to the audio podcast.

In our forty minute exchange, I offer a defense of annihilationism while Trent pushes back as an advocate for the traditional eternal conscious torment view. Sadly, we didn’t have as much time to get into the biblical texts as I would’ve liked: alas, the time flew by. Next time, we should devote 2 hours to this topic!

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