Answering Objections to my ‘Horse’s Mouth’ Collection

A commenter posting under the name “Jim” recently left reaction to my 2005 entry From the Horse's Mouth: Apologists Shooting Themselves in the Foot, asserting that I’m “being intellectually dishonest” in the “list of quotes” that I present in that entry. Jim called out three quotes and chastised me for my own comments on those quotes.

Given that Jim’s blogger profile indicates that he’s been on Blogger since 2024 and his comment was posted on the morning January 1, 2024, one might surmise that he created his account expressly to post his comment on my blog. I just found that curious.

Below I will consider Jim’s objections in order so that we can see how well they hold up.

"He is found in our hearts"

Christian apologists often carry on as if they’re know-it-alls when it comes to arguments. It’s possible that some might even know what an argument is. Many will spend hours if not years in the effort to master formal argumentation, fallacy detection, rhetorical devices, and of course, expressions in Latin. Their hope is apparently to ensure that they be “always ready” for any skirmish with a non-believer, for defending the faith from the offense of non-belief is of paramount importance to preserving loyalty to the confession.

And over the millennia theologians and apologists have been very inventive, devising numerous arguments for theism from a variety of angles, such as that the universe needed a cause, that the design we find in the world indicates the existence of a designer, that moral norms necessarily imply a moral law-giver, etc. Once belief in theism has been accepted, there’s an argument to defeat every possible criticism of god-belief that naysayers and spoilsports might raise. And the motivation for devising such arguments should not be too difficult to understand: once belief in the supernatural has been accepted as a true account of reality, one will need to protect his pride from the baddies of the world who scoff at such beliefs.

Anderson on the Lowder-Turek Debate

James Anderson recently published his review of the Lowder-Turek Debate

Over the past several years I haven’t been watching a lot of these debates – maybe two or three a year, if that. I did watch the debate between Sye Ten Bruggencate and Matt Dillahunty earlier this year, and I did in fact draft up some thoughts on it that I wanted to share on my blog. My notes are still sitting on my hard drive waiting for me to revisit them. Maybe later I’ll get back to them.

Then I saw Anderson’s dust-up on the Lowder-Turek Debate. After reading Anderson’s review, I thought I’d like to watch the debate. At two hours and twenty-some minutes, that takes a chunk out of my day, so an investment like that better be worthwhile. So I watched it.

“…it’s easy to imagine all the saved in heaven…”

It’s a particularly delicious treat when apologists unwittingly make damning concessions. Of course, this happens quite routinely, only it often has a subliminal effect since most non-Christians are as clueless about fundamentals as Christianity requires its adherents to be.

For example, when a Christian makes a statement like, “just because you don’t believe in the resurrection doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” he along with most non-believing skeptics apparently don’t recognize how the believer is making use of a fundamental principle which directly conflicts with the metaphysical foundations of Christianity.

Or consider when apologists make the absurd claim that they begin with the assumption that the bible is true. For example, when Jason Petersen writes (details here):

I guess let me just explain my epistemology, if you don’t mind. I start with the revelation of Scripture. I view Scripture as sufficient.

Such statements are simply an admission that their beliefs cannot possibly be rational, since their very starting point constitutes a radical departure from reality. They only multiply this absurdity when they assume the truth of what they later come along and claim to be able to “prove.”

From the Horse's Mouth... Again!

Back in IP Year One, I posted an entry titled From the Horse’s Mouth: Apologists Shooting Themselves in the Foot. That entry contained a series of self-implicating statements which I had found in a variety of apologetic publications. For example, I included John Frame’s confession “we know without knowing how we know” (from here) and Phil Fernandes’ admission “I just believe that we are very good about lying to ourselves, and only accepting, uh, or interpreting the evidence the way we would like to” (from here; see also here).

Those are some pretty damning statements, and we should not fail to remind apologists about them.

But on occasion, I come across another one, so a new collection has gathered, and I’d like to have these kinds of things right at my fingertips. So I am assembling a second installment to the From the Horse’s Mouth collection.

Jason Petersen’s “Epistemology”

In a discussion titled Philosophical Vlogs Debates Jason Petersen of Answers For Hope, “Clarkian presuppositionalist” Jason Petersen explains his “epistemology.” (The whole discussion offers a fascinating glimpse of the profound embarrassment that Petersen makes of himself when trying to pontificate as an apologist.)

I think it would be instructive to take a look at what he describes and probe it for the virtues he claims on its behalf.

Petersen’s Failed Attempts to Refute Leonard Peikoff: Objection 3

This is the fourth entry in my series examining attempts by “Clarkian presuppositionalist” Jason Petersen to refute a series of statements by Objectivist philosopher Dr. Leonard Peikoff on the topic of the existence of a god.

The first entry in this series can be found here.

The second entry in this series (Objection 1) can be found here.

The third entry in this series (Objection 2) can be found here.

Dr. Peikoff’s statements in question can be found here.

Jason Petersen’s response to Peikoff can be found here.

In this entry I will examine Petersen’s attempts to refute Peikoff’s “Objection 3” against theism. In the present entry, we come to certain claims about “God’s nature” as Petersen would have us imagine it. Petersen raises a series of point-missing objections to one of Peikoff’s statements.

What Alternative Do “Apostates” Have After Leaving Christianity?

Over on Triablogue, Steve Hays posted a blog entry reacting to statements made by Christian apologist Mike Licona (remember – he’s the guy who blurted out “I want it to be true” in a podcast featuring a discussion between himself, Gary Habermas and Robert Price - see here for details).

In his blog entry, Hays' remarks are instructive in that they expose how a mind marinated in religious doublethink tries to gerrymander a selected handful of data sets in favor of a confessional investment. In his blog entry, Hays quotes from and reacts to a post by Christian apologist Mike Licona.

Hays quotes Licona, who writes:

I’ve doubted the truth of my Christian faith many times; sometimes to the point of almost walking away from it.

Reacting to this, Hays writes:

Professing Christians who feel this way need to stop and ask themselves, where would they be going? Walk away…for what?

In addition to asking why they feel this way, I think this is a fair question for believers to contemplate since departing from one worldview naturally leaves a void which would need to be filled by something else. And indeed, it’s quite likely that most people who depart from Christianity have no reliable set of principles which can guide them to a proper, fully integrated and non-contradictory worldview that should fill that void. After all, Christianity does not provide a thinker with such reliable principles. So leaving Christianity, can at first, seem like entering into utter darkness. What’s ironic is that this darkness was there all along, and Christianity was simply trying to divert the believer’s attention to contentless trivialities that have no importance to human life in the first place. So it is true that leaving Christianity is a good start, but it’s not an end in itself. Making the decision to stop believing in religious nonsense is wonderful, but this choice in and of itself does not determine what should replace it. At least one could say Christianity is an attempt – albeit one steeped in mystical primitivism – to address questions which a worldview worthy of a thinking human being should address. So if one leaves Christianity, where should he go?

Generally, there are two ways to address the question of what a former believer might (or should) accept as a worldview in place of Christianity. The first way is to use reason as his guide. The other way is to abandon reason and exchange one form of irrationality for another. Of course, if Christianity is one’s starting point, he has already abandoned reason and thus needs to rediscover it, just as the West did during the Renaissance. But given these two alternatives, which one does Hays recommend? Let’s examine his reaction to the problem.

Twerking for Jesus

Just in time for Halloween, TUaD is at it again over on Theological Bullsushi, twerking for Jesus as he so lovingly does. This time TUaD posted a link to an article titled “Computer Scientists ‘Prove’ God Exists.” Presumably we are expected to be impressed by the titular statement, that is of course until we learn that it’s yet another version of the tired, outworn ontological argument.

In fact, one wonders how closely TUaD has read the article that he himself linked to in his own comment. TUaD does quote a section of the article in his comment, but he skipped over some key statements about the nature of the article and the significance of the accomplishment it showcases.

Behold How the Holy Ones Speak!

Take a look at this Christian who posts under the moniker “Truth Unites… and Divides” (TUaD hereafter) over on theology served undercooked. Here’s what TUaD wrote recently in response to our very own NAL:

Hey MALformed, another laughably stupid atheist who's spending so much time on this blog thread when considering your atheistic convictions and worldview. You only have a limited time on earth before you die. Why spend those precious moments debating Hodge and other Christians?  

LOL, the MALformed atheist! That's a good one!

There, there. Feel better now, TUaD?

Mike Licona says: “I want it to be true”

I would really like to know how Christians react to this candid admission by a rather high-profile Christian apologist, Mike Licona. (His website is RisenJesus.com, and he even has an entry on Wikipedia.org.)

In a discussion between Licona, Gary Habermas and Robert Price, Licona makes a fascinating autobiographical revelation – really a confession.The discussion is available on YouTube and has been sliced rather sloppily into four sections. Those who are interested in the debate over what if anything is historically reliable in the New Testament might enjoy listening to this discussion, so here are the links to the different installments:

The Historical Jesus: Scholars Debate - Part 1  

The Historical Jesus: Scholars Debate - Part 2  

The Historical Jesus: Scholars Debate - Part 3  

The Historical Jesus: Scholars Debate - Part 4