On “You Can’t Prove A Negative”

June 16, 2013 By 18 Comments

“What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof” – Christopher Hitchens

math-minus-signA common reply that many atheists give when asked about evidence for atheism is “you can’t prove a negative”. Does this response have any validity? Using reason and critical thinking we’re going to look at three things that (ironically) point to the negative.

First, the negative is proven, or attempts are made to prove the negative thousands, if not millions of times every day. In courts around the world lawyers defend clients who have been accused of a crime. The defense lawyer either attempts to prove that their client is not the person who committed the crime, or attempts to prove that a crime was not committed, the alleged crime does not exist–proving the negative.
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Filed Under: Answering Modern Atheists, Agnostics and Adversaries of Traditional Christianity, General Apologetics -- Defensive, The New Atheism

Ask the Alliance: What about those who have never heard?

June 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment

question-mark:::Ask the Alliance Question #1:::

Question submitted by Samuel: What happens to an individual who has never heard of Christianity or God at death? 

One CAA member submitted simply this verse:

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. Revelation 20:12-13

Zack catches us up with some background:

Even some skeptics have created memes to assert that the real point behind the work of evangelism worldwide would be weakened if those who never heard automatically went to Heaven (AvT and RBPT1, 2012). In one of them, a person who newly hears the Gospel asks why the evangelist should tell him such news. (For then the Gospel news would automatically condemn him until he chose to accept it.) An underlying point seems to be that condemnation has come upon the man. If the man dies after hearing but before accepting, he would be condemned, hypothetically speaking, for simply hearing the Gospel.

References:
AvT = “Atheist versus Theist: The God Debate” social media internet forum
RBPT1 = “Reliability of the Bible Put to the Test” social media internet forum (2007-2013, recently closed forum, its successor forum has the same name)

Z. E. Kendall

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Filed Under: Answering the Problem of Evil, Suffering and Hell, Ask the Alliance

The Moral Objection to Miracles

June 12, 2013 By 2 Comments

In New York, on March 3, 1964 at 3:15am, Kitty Genovese was attacked, raped, and killed after driving home from work. Her neighbors heard her screams and did nothing. They could have easily saved her from suffering, rape, and death. It would have taken, at most, a few seconds to call the police. Was that too much to ask for? By having not intervened, they seem to be partially, morally culpable for what happened. Their intervention could have saved her life. Seeing someone suffering and choosing to remain silent is inexcusable. Is not silence in the face of evil morally reprehensible? By this standard, then, it seems that God incriminates Himself. God is like the neighbor who hears the cries of Kitty Genovese– screaming and bleeding–and chooses to ignore her and let her die. He is the bystander holding the phone in his hand who witnesses a violent stabbing and rape and yet chooses not to alert the police authorities. He hears the cries of human persons, whom he supposedly loves, in pain. Christians claim that God does, in fact, do miracles, but this seems to only complicate things. Why does God only perform miracles in certain cases (if He really does do miracles) and not others?

darkness-forest-night-image-31000

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Filed Under: Affirming Miracles, Answering the Problem of Evil, Suffering and Hell, The Problem of Evil Tagged With: , , , ,

Atheism and the burden of proof

June 9, 2013 By 23 Comments
A rock wall is made from a firm foundation

A rock wall is made from a firm foundation

When someone makes a claim about the world, if they want to convince others, they are required to provide justification for that claim. This is not a contentious or strange idea, but what does this mean for atheism? Is atheism a belief and does it require justification? In this article I will show that atheism is a belief about the world and that it does require a justification in the same way that theism does.      [Read more...]

Filed Under: Atheism Is Not a Belief?, FSM + Russell's Teapot + Burden of Proof, The New Atheism

Convince Me There’s A God – Morality 3

June 8, 2013 By 3 Comments

If you asked me when I was an atheist what I thought about serial killers, I would have said they were terrible people. If you asked me what I thought about child abusers, same answer – terrible people. If you asked me what I thought about my doing whatever I wanted to do even if other people thought it was wrong, different answer. What I did was my business. However, that came with a built-in problem.

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Filed Under: Answering Moral Relativism, Argument from Morality Tagged With: , , ,

Blind Men and the Elephant

May 23, 2013 By 3 Comments

There is an old known as “the Blind Men and the Elephant.”  In this story, there are 4 blind men who are asked to determine what an elephant looks.  The first blind man feels the leg of the elephant and says, “The elephant is like a tree because it is large and round like a pillar.”  The second man feels the tail and says, “The elephant is like a rope because it is small and coarse.”  The third man feels the ear and says, “The elephant is like a fan because it is flat and thin.”  The fourth man feels the trunk and says, “The elephant is like a snake because it is long and curves.”  [Read more...]

Filed Under: Affirming Exclusive Truth, Comparing and Evaluating Religions or Worldviews, Post-modernism, Relativism, and Truth

Omnipotent God and The Paradox of the Stone

May 21, 2013 By 5 Comments

The concept of an omnipotent being, namely a being with maximal perfection with respect to power, is sometimes believed to involve a contradiction. The most popular reductio ad absurdum case against the existence of omnipotent being is known as “the paradox of the stone.”

The paradox unfolds as follows:

1. If God exists, then He is omnipotent
2. If God is omnipotent then God can create a stone too heavy for anyone to lift.
3. If God can create a stone too heavy for anyone to lift, then God is not omnipotent since He cannot lift the stone He created.
4. If God cannot create a stone too heavy for anyone to lift, then God is not omnipotent since He cannot create the stone too heavy for anyone to lift.
5. Either way God is not omnipotent.
6. Therefore God does not exist. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Answering Classical Atheists, Agnostics and Adversaries of Traditional Christianity, Defending Essential Doctrines with Philosophy, Philosophical Apologetics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

If All Religions are True then God is Cruel

May 20, 2013 By 2 Comments

In 2003, the short-film Most made its way onto the big screen. The film shows the story of a single father who takes his son to work with him at the bridgdrawbridgee which he tends. He was responsible for raising and lowering the bridge at the appropriate times to allow ships and trains to pass. One day as the bridge remained raised, a train approached an hour before schedule. After failing to get his father’s attention and warn him to lower the bridge for the quickly approaching train, the boy attempted to manually lower it on his own and accidentally fell into the gear-works that enabled to bridge to operate. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Affirming Exclusive Truth, Post-modernism, Relativism, and Truth, Postmodernism Tagged With: , , ,

The Problem of Evil: Impact of theology. Part 3 of 3

May 20, 2013 By 3 Comments
WTC 9/11 by slagheap

Part 1 Part 2

The Impact of Theology

(The rest of this article is a bit of an aside over the internal debate between Calvinism and Arminianism within Christianity, but is pertinent to the problem of evil discussion.)

A bit more should probably be said about the debate within Christianity between the Calvinist and Arminian views (while noting that either thwart the atheist’s challenge). Theology matters! This can be seen in trying to work out this problem. The Bible says that God ordains, but doesn’t author evil. While I think this is best left in some mystery, it is interesting to see how theologians have tried to work it out.

The free-will defense, on the face of it, looks pretty compelling; however it is not without some problems. First, it is unclear how humans could have true freedom without implications on God’s sovereignty. God could corral human actions through external means, but then are humans really free? Second, in the new creation, evil will be abolished. If evil were possible due to freedom in this life, will freedom be taken away in the next? If not, wouldn’t another fall be possible? Ultimately, the Arminian position places more emphasis on the human perspective. God is bringing about a solution that is best for his creatures (the most saved, best lessons learned, etc.)

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Filed Under: Answering Modern Atheists, Agnostics and Adversaries of Traditional Christianity, Answering the Problem of Evil, Suffering and Hell, The Problem of Evil

Evolution and the Church: A Dysfunctional Marriage

May 19, 2013 By 2 Comments

Although none of its followers would call it a religion, evolution has become the religion of the university. Instead, they call it science, even though none of it can be verified in the laboratory. However, even a growing number of atheists are challenging this theory. The late theoretical physicist, Fred Hoyle, dismissed this theory:

  • “Darwinian theory is wrong because random variations tend to worsen performance as indeed common sense suggests.“(CRJ, Vol. 36, #02, 47)
  • “Biomaterials [the materials of the cell] with their amazing measure of order must be the outcome of intelligent design.”

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Filed Under: Creation vs I.D. vs Theistic Evolution, Science and Faith Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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