There is a debate online between Matt Slick and Matt Dillahunty. One day I'll do a commentary it, but for now I want to draw attention to one paradoxical idea.
I believe Matt Dillahunty to be a true blessing to the inadequacies of popular apologetics.
There is a misconception in the culture of Christian apologetics that thinks it has 'the' answer to truly deep philosophical and scientific questions. Dillahunty represents a popular rebuttal to this. An apologetic conversation, I would argue, operates on various levels. It could stagnate on the first level, which it often does, when arguing about the burden of proof. I do agree that if the burden of proof is a legitimate issue, it's got to be settled.
C.S. Lewis wrote an essay entitled On Obstinacy in Belief, published in The World's Last Night.
This is a great essay full of great ideas, even if it can be more fully developed. It's evident that Lewis was inspired by William James' The Will to Believe.
Lewis' essay deals with why it's not irrational of Christians to believe Christianity even when confronted by contrary evidence. This idea is coming up a lot lately in the New Atheist movement, but it's been around for a while.
The scientific frame of mind dispassionately confirms hypotheses, and if data turns up that falsifies the hypothesis, or forces some modification, scientists have no problem discarding it. Isn't God just another hypothesis postulated to explain phenomena? And isn't it understandable that this annoys scientists, since the hypothesis seems unfalsifiable by any usual ways in which any other scientific hypothesis can be falsified?
Is there something else going on? Well, Lewis thinks so.
Sye Ten Bruggencate (STB) is a presuppositional apologist who is popular for promulgating a version of the Transcendental Argument for God's existence (TAG).
Eric Hovind propagates a version of this argument too. What I see, though, is bad epistemology in this argument. I'm a Christian, but I see that the epistemology under-girding the argument isn't good.
I couldn't find a good, short, to the point, video on the argument, so I'm posting one with Eric Hovind. He's trying to use the argument on a 6th grader who is interacting with the argument quite well, independent of who is right or wrong. I'm posting it primarily because the argument I want to focus on is blatantly stated for clarity's sake.
In the course of the debate involving Matt Slick and Aron Ra, it was clear that both sides were guilty of not abiding by various, generic protocols that need to happen in order for a debate to be ideal, and in order for the productivity of a dialogue to be at its maximal ideal.
At a minimum, emotion should be minimized, civility needs to be maximized, terms need to be clarified, premises need to be proven (or argued for), and arguments need to be valid. If all of that is a success, you have a sound argument. That's the purpose of argument, as far as I can tell.
What I'll try to do in this blog is talk about my philosophical interests and apply them to whatever is popular in culture. This doesn't mean I won't get deep in philosophy or deep in culture. Culture, for the purposes of this blog, is anything I want to talk about in the media. So, I'd love to talk about anything from a philosophy behind a movie, book, music, poem, or news article; or I'd be willing to talk about just a movie, song, etc.; or even just a philosophy itself. I'll just focus on whatever takes my fancy, and since I love philosophy, I'll probably be doing a lot of philosophical analysis. The more people participate, the more I'll be pleased. Let's begin the great conversation!
To be honest, I am an Evangelical Christian. But I'll never be mean or condescending to those who disagree.
