One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons." This testimony is true.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve read from Van Til and starting to wonder if Presuppositional/Covenantal apologists even have, in principle, an argument that is valid. Let me use Chris Bolt from Choosing Hats Blogs as an example.
Earlier this fall I was honored by my University’s Muslims Student Association and the Minnesota Dawah Institute when they let me engage their community, as a secular student interested in Islamic studies, in exploring out different understanding about the Qur’an. My respectful counterpart was brother Faruq Kaase, a well known personality on my campus and an avid debater with the local Christian community. You can see him hold forth on the Qur’an and the Bible here:
The man smiling back at you on the right is none other than the (in)famous David Nutting of the
Alpha and Omega institute. He has been in Minnesota as of late, giving talks at Universities on the issues surrounding the Evolution/Creation debacle that crops up every now and again in American courts and is the galvanizing issue that binds most active secularists together. I attended one of David’s presentations on a lark (his better half was feeling ill and I wish her a speedy recovery), but ended up being the only person from my local SSA branch to attend. This left me with the burden of reporting the event and the end result is this blog post.
To those readers not familiar with me or my blog, I want to remove any pretense of objectivity. I’m an atheist who has little interest in the current debates that surround these issues, nor do I care about persuading people to join my cause. I don’t have much interest in the natural sciences outside its intersections with philosophy and religion and do not even begin to have the knowledge needed to deal with the various claims that Mr. Nutting brought up in his presentation. No need to go getting mixed up in the business of my betters, I say.
What I hope to provide is some insight and feedback that others can use to reflect on, and what knowledge I do have I’ll certainly bring to the table when appropriate. So with that in mind…
So I’ve gotten a few requests to share my thoughts on a so called “New Wave” of atheism called Atheism+. I’ve hesitated because I really don’t want to add to the dog pile of criticism that seems to be a war of conflicting personalities. I’ve finally relented and I’ve decided to post my thoughts because I wasn’t seeing anything that really reflected my thoughts being put out by anyone else (sure as shit ain't this or that).
The best place to start is with my friend Dan Finke, in a post describing his visit to my school he made mention of a lively discussion he and I had at lunch:
I want to begin this letter with expressing my gratitude for your ministry, even though I am an unbelieving atheist with no interest in conversion, the material you’ve produced has been enormously educational for me and an eye opening experience in just how ignorant I was (and still am) of orthodox Christian theology and church history. I would also like to mention that your character and attitude when engaging others in the public arena has inspired me to elevate my own standards of personal conduct. I think your public debates and interactions with John Dominic Crossan, Mitch Pacwa, and Robert Price are fine examples of how two people can respectfully and substantively engage one another without combative rhetoric and fiery invective.
I came across this video on Facebook the today from a Christian apologist on Youtube who goes by the name Mr. Ministry Man, and I was fascinated by it, though not for the content itself:
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.
The blog title is my suggestion for Greta Christina's next book.
Now I really don’t know much about Greta Christina, other than she recently visited my campus to talk about secular sexuality, but I didn’t attend. Greta stayed off my radar until recently when three different people sent me one of her blog entries about Alain de Botton.
This is a friendly puzzle for my friends over at the Choosing Hats website. I can imagine that contesting with village atheists can be an exasperating experience, so here is something a little different:
