Thinking to Believe

Many Eastern religions make this claim about God. And now, it is being picked up as a popular idea among Westerners. Unfortunately, it is incoherent.

To say God is unknowable is either a statement about God or a statement about ourselves. If it is a statement about God, it is an affirmation that he has no properties capable of being known. And yet having at least one property is what differentiates existence from non-existence. If God has no properties, then he doesn’t exist.

If it is a statement about ourselves – our ability to know a God with specific properties – then it is self-refuting because the statement itself is a claim to know something about God: He is unknowable. If God were unknowable, we would not even be able to know that He was unknowable. The point can be made succinctly by asking, “How do you know God is unknowable if nothing can be known of God? Isn’t that something you know about him?”

Either way you look at it, that statement is incoherent.

There is a lot of confusion about what is meant by “moral relativism” and “moral objectivism/realism”

“Subjective” and “objective” tell you about the source of the truth maker; i.e. what makes something true. Is it the beliefs of the subject (the person’s mind) that make it true, or is it an object in the external world? My belief that homemade vanilla ice cream is the best ice cream is what makes it true that homemade vanilla ice cream is the best ice cream for me. In contrast, the curvature of space-time is what makes gravity true – not just for me, but for everyone. Gravity is true regardless of what I believe about it.

(more…)

2/15/18 – Richmond, VA – Virginia House of Delegates 2018.
Photo credit: Amanda Maglione

Why should you care about the trans issue? Why not just let people do what they want? Here’s a good reason: The State is taking kids away from parents.

It’s already happening. Parents are being stripped of their parental rights because they will not use their child’s preferred name/pronouns or consent to “gender affirmation care.” Think about it. If the only way to help trans people is to affirm their identities, then those who do not affirm them are responsible for harming them. In the same way the State will not allow you to physically harm your child, they will not allow you to emotionally and medically harm your child by denying them “life-saving” gender care.

(more…)

Thomas would not believe the report of the other disciples who said they had seen Jesus alive. He only believed in Jesus’ resurrection after Jesus appeared to Him as well. Jesus’ words to Thomas on that day have been immortalized in the Gospel of John: “Because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

This verse is often used by those who oppose the use of evidence and reason in evangelism. They argue that if God’s blessing is given to those who believe in Jesus’ resurrection without evidence, then apologetic arguments aren’t just unnecessary, but a spiritual hindrance that robs people of the blessing that comes through faith. On its face, Jesus does appear to berate Thomas for requiring evidence of His resurrection while pronouncing a blessing on those who believe without the need for evidence. A closer examination of the passage in its context, however, reveals this reading of the text to be mistaken.

(more…)

Back when our country was still debating whether or not we should change the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples, those opposed to the redefinition argued that if we did so, polygamy and polyamory would be next. Opponents argued that this was a crazy slippery slope fallacy. But it wasn’t. It was a valid slippery slope argument. Conservatives were simply noting that the rationale for redefining marriage to include same-sex couples applied equally to all sorts of other relationships, including polygamy and polyamory. If you include same-sex couples, there is no rational basis on which to exclude polygamy. The idea that marriage should be limited to just two people is based on the sex binary. Once the sex binary is replaced with a simple requirement of “love and commitment,” polygamous and polyamorous relationships qualify for marriage as well.

(more…)

We tend to trust the experts. The impulse is right because the experts have more knowledge and expertise in the subject than we do. They know the nuances. But when the experts claim to be above critique by non-experts, that’s a problem. When they say (in so many words) “you can’t evaluate my claims because I am the smart one and you are the dummy,” they are presenting an empty appeal to authority. The experts often differ among themselves, so we have reason to question the experts. After all, they can’t all be right. The only way to determine who is right is to question the experts.

(more…)