The notion that Christianity is based on a “leap of faith” rather than an intellectual commitment of mind and soul to God is widespread in today’s culture. At The Skeptical Christian, this mistake is addressed head on. Christianity is *not* a worldview for the weak-minded and it is *not* based on a blind leap of faith.
The Skeptical Christian was designed with discussion in mind. Any article on this site can be commented on, and any suggestions, critiques, or alternative perspectives on any of the writings are welcomed and encouraged.
For an entire site outline, read on.
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Podcasting on the Mind-Body Problem
3 June 2008I took part in the Apologia podcast discussion once more, and if you are interested head on over to the blog to check it out, or subscribe to their podcast. We discussed the Mind-Body problem and I did my best to defend the substance dualist view. That’s an issue that I haven’t had the chance to write about a great deal on this site, but hopefully I will soon because I find it endlessly fascinating.
Review - Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Many people are probably already aware of the controversial documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Starring Ben Stein, this film takes a look at the theory of Intelligent Design. It actually covers a variety of topics; including discrimination of ID theorists in the scientific community, criticisms of Darwinian evolution, and the supposed link between Darwinism and Nazism/eugenics.
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The Teleological Argument (my paper)
28 April 2008Just wanted to update readers on a new addition to the website. I uploaded a paper that I wrote on the Teleological Argument for my philosophy of religions class. I have been working on a huge article providing a detailed defense of this argument for almost a year now, and with any luck that will be completed relatively soon. However, the paper provides a fairly extensive overview of the Teleological Arguments. Unfortunately, I vastly exceeded the page limit for the paper (with my professor’s permission), but I did not wish to make the paper any longer. Thus, some points were not as developed as I would have liked. In any case, you can get the paper here.
Apologia
28 April 2008I appeared once again on the apologia podcast. As usual, head over to the Apologia blog to check it out if you are interested. We primarily focused on the Problem of Evil in this week’s discussion. I should be recording my new podcast for the end of April coming up here, which will also cover the Problem of Evil. Enjoy!
More Podcasting (but not my own)
8 April 2008I was a guest in yet another podcast- this one called the Reason Driven Podcast- which is hosted by Danny Schade and Mikyle Lockwood. Danny and I have dialogued on the Apologia podcast previously, but he asked me to appear on this show a while back. The podcast follows the book by Robert Price called The Reason Driven Life, a response to Pastor Rick Warren’s bestseller The Purpose Driven Life. I am reading through both of these books currently and you can expect some reviews in the library soon.
In any case, I really enjoyed participating in this show. I responded to chapter 21 of Price’s book during the interview, but we ended up discussing a variety of issues- hell, evangelism, arguments for God’s existence, evidence for Christ’s resurrection, and a host of other topics.
Check out the blog and listen to the show at http://reasondriven.blogspot.com/. Hopefully I will be able to get to producing my own podcast (fingers crossed)- which should be up sometime this week. All the best.
Podcast Discussion (Again)
2 April 2008I once again took place in the Apologia podcast discussion – this time the issue was the arguments against God’s existence. Check it out at apologia-podcast.blogspot.com.
Once again it was a great discussion and I was glad to participate.
Podcast Discussion
15 March 2008I took place in a discussion on the Apologia podcast concerning the arguments for the existence of God. Check out the podcast at apologia-podcast.blogspot.com. I really enjoyed participating and I may be joining them in other conversations soon.
Still Here!
29 January 2008Hey, just wanted to write an update here to let everyone know what is going on behind the scenes here at the Skeptical Christian. The wonderful Steve Mckinney is helping me redesign the website with a new backend. The new site will have a cleaner look and much better functionality. I am currently working on porting all of my articles over to the new site, which also involves updating, checking grammar and spelling, and expanding on all the articles and reviews I have on the site. This is why updates have been sparse for the past couple months (though I have been doing a lot of reading; I’m currently working on 5 book reviews).
Another problem has been my audio setup for the podcast. I didn’t post one for the month of December because I have been having audio problems. I think I have figured out the problem, so I should be good to resume podcasts this month. Should have one up in the next few days, provided that the audio problems don’t return.
Finally, there has been some new content uploaded since I last wrote about updates. First of all, episode 12 of the podcast was a recording of a talk that I gave on the historical evidence for the resurrection, while episode 13 looked at the evolution of belief. Other than that, I have some more book reviews;
- Reason and Religious Belief by William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, David Basinger, and Michael Peterson
- Predestination and Free Will by John Feinberg, Norman Geisler, Bruce Reichenbach, and Clark Pinnock
- God and Time: Four Views by Paul Helm, Alan Padgett, William Lane Craig, and Nicholas Wolterstorff
- Time and Eternity by William Lane Craig
- Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland
- Passionate Conviction by William Lane Craig and Paul Copan
- The Lost Virtue of Happiness by J.P. Moreland and Klaus Issler
More Site Updates
17 October 2007It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned the new things going on here at The Skeptical Christian. I’ve been trying to keep up on the podcast, and I have 3 more episodes since the last update. Episode 9 covered personal experiences as a way of knowing God. Episode 10 was on the evils of Christianity. Episode 11 discussed a few arguments that Christians should not use. I’ve decided to make only one podcast per month now that school is in session (and I was already having trouble keeping up with two). You can expect a new podcast episode the last day of every month from now on.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, and the library now contains reviews for the following books;
- Simply Christian by N.T. Wright
- The Language of God by Francis Collins
- The Impossible Faith by J.P. Holding
- God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens
- The Dawkins Delusion? by Alister and Joanna McGrath
- The Only Wise God by William Lane Craig
- Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views by Greg Boyd, Paul Helm, David Hunt, and William Lane Craig
Some Site Updates
3 August 2007Unfortunately, due to time constraints I was only able to post one podcast for July. I should be able to do two of them here in August. The most recent episode covered the Argument from the Meaning of Life.
It seems that I’ve been having some technical difficulties with the mailing list, consequently, I did not send out a newsletter for July and it seems that nobody is able to sign up for the service at this point. I am working on the problem to get it back in order, and I suspect that it will be fixed in time for this month’s newsletter.
I also have a new book review of Daniel Dennett’s popular book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.
