Justin Schieber of Real Atheology
@justinschiebs
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Metaphysically liberal naturalist. Founder and host of @RealAtheology .
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
Joined April 2009
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We released this yesterday. I’m quite happy with how the exchange unfolded. Any comments would be greatly appreciated,
⭐️NEW EPISODE ALERT⭐️
In this comically long episode, Justin Schieber and Kyle Alander discuss defeat-based approaches to the problem of evil. Such approaches are favored by philosophers Trent Dougherty, John Schneider, and the late Marilyn McCord Adams.
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God is not a delusion.
God is one option in a philosophically ambiguous world.
Sincerely,
An atheist
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Setting aside the question of what is true, is there any reason why somebody would prefer a God whose punishment of sin is eternally destructive rather than ultimately restorative?
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Yeah, no atheist has ever been critical of the slavery passages within the Hebrew Bible nor has any atheist raised an eyebrow about apparent commands of ethnic cleansing by the God depicted therein.
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When I say God loves you, I mean only by analogy.
And when I say by analogy, I don’t mean in a way that is in any way helpful to understand what it means to say that God loves you.
But still, God loves you.
Just don’t feel glad (or any other way) about it.
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I was delighted to finally meet
@SecularOutpost
(Jeff Lowder) in-person. We hiked and then sat down to discuss a number of topics including Paul Draper’s argument from Pain and Pleasure.
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“Leading atheist philosophers”
Honestly a hilarious tweet.
Consider this. Richard Dawkins, the most famous of the "new atheists" now calls himself a "cultural Christian". Peter Boghossian and David Silverman, leading atheist philosophers have said they would rather see their kids marry a Christian than an atheist "woke" ideologue.
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Having lunch with Paul Draper and Eleanore Stump. But, like, whatever.
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When I quit doing POR stuff online a few years ago and said I was leaving less confident in my atheism than when I started, this annoyed people. But I feel like that's just philosophy.
I still LEAN toward atheism but I lack the steady resolve of a trust-fall exercise participant.
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Not understanding evolution is not a flex.
Let me guess, there were no pressures to make it want to evolve, it found its “niche” in life 😆😂🤡
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Theists, will divine hiddenness remain after death? Or does the afterlife come paired with a form of divine obviousness?
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My boy screaming into the void again.
Atheists have no moral standard by which to object to anything.
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I'm told that testimony is sufficient to establish the rationality of belief in ancient miracle claims but insufficient to establish the existence of non-resistant non-belief in God. I'm told many, many of things.
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It’s so bizarre to me that, when somebody presents a Schellenberg-style hiddenness argument, people often jump to reasons why the presenter might be a resistant nonbeliever.
Cool, now consider each individual that has existed throughout the entire history of humanity.
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I’m excited to announce that those of us at
@RealAtheology
will be returning to regular releases in the new year. We’ve got upcoming episodes with
@dustin_crummett
,
@KennethLPearce
,
@waldenpod
and more ready to go.
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There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination.
—Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, 1995
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It’s antecedently surprising that, if God exists, we have been created with moral intuitions that, even at their most sensitive, do not Intuit by design even the most coarse-grain reasons for God’s creating horrendous evils.
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It’s like people cannot even defend an ancient attempted mass-slaughter of innocents as a means of ethnic cleansing anymore.
Has the woke mob has too far?
#williamlanecraig
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I’ll be heading to Houston, TX to participate in a debate with
@EHM_Apologetics
on God’s existence on May 6.
It’s being hosted by
@CapturingChrist
at
@LanierTheoLib
.
It’s been years since I’ve done a debate but I’m excited to again explore these big questions with new friends.
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The vast majority of people who convert to theism from nontheism do so without knowing what the positive arguments for nontheism even are.
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“if a good God allows evil, it can only be because the evil in ques- tion produces a benefit for the sufferer and one that God could not produce without the suffering” (Stump, 1985)
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Yes.
It I also reasonable to not believe in God. Reasonableness is person-relative.
DEBATE | Is it reasonable to believe in God? | Dr. Paul Copan vs Stephen Woodford:
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Many Christians think it not a problem that God appears hidden to some because being too obvious would somehow coerce them into relationship with God.
Many of the same appear to have little problem with traditional Hell which is the most coercive metaphysical posit possible.
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“All of creation testifies to the reality of God.”
“Some goods require God’s hiding from seekers.”
“All unbelief is emotional resistance.”
“God creates a world of religious ambiguity to encourage us to search Him out.”
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“We’re both atheists about Thor. Zeus etc. I just go one further.”
If stated as a challenge to theistic belief, rather than an atheist’s attempt to elicit a better understanding of his/her own reasoning, it’s pretty weak.
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Frank Turek, leading theistic philosopher…
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“In philosophy, the atheist is not just someone who doesn’t accept theism, but more strongly someone who opposes it.”
J.L. Schellenberg
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Widespread modern testimony of the existence of non-resistant non-belief in theism is apparently much harder to accept than the fragmented, less than consistent reports of testimony 2000 years ago that some ‘saw’ a murdered man walk the streets of Jerusalem.
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You can prove a negative by showing a contradiction within the idea itself or by demonstrating its incompatibility with some other known fact..
But you can also argue for a negative by showing a lack of expected evidence of the sort that we would expect to find.
#atheism
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Imagine being a moral realist and simultaneously thinking that your view of goodness is compatible with the actions attributed to the God of the Old Testament.
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A theist’s rejection of universalism just is a theist’s rejection of a perfect being.
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I deeply appreciate
@gavinortlund
’s defense of scientific consensus on climate change. This is, in my experience, rare among evangelicals. He no doubt gets plenty of flack for it.
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And yet you’re also in possession of facts about biological evolution that have been defeating such inferences for more than 150 years
The Presumption of Design: if it looks designed, it probably is, and should be regarded as so unless there is good reason to think otherwise.
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Explanations by their very nature attempt fill a ‘gap’ in our knowledge.
Positing God to fill such a gap is not to be ruled out a priori. What matters is whether the explanation can be defended as being a good one or, better yet, the best available.
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Craig could never say an individual who is performing some seemingly horrendous deed while claiming God self-evidently commanded it of him was somehow delusional or morally confused on that basis alone.
I’m stuck between pity and disgust.
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Imagine if you believed yourself to be in a personal relationship with goodness personified
But you also defended particular (ancient) instances of toddler-stabbing if commanded by that goodness.
I’ll say it.
Pretty weird
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“Any argument for moral skepticism is going to be based upon premises which are less obvious than the reality of moral values and duties them- selves, and therefore it can never be rational to accept moral skepticism.”
Louise Antony
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Grew up:Christian
Currently: Atheist
Could see myself becoming: an agnostic or general theist.
Grew up: Christian
Currently: Atheist
Could see myself becoming: Eastern Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or continuing with Atheism
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The epistemological bullet-biting that is the denial of mountains of personal and scientific testimony in support of nonresistant nonbelief requires nothing short of an unhinged jaw - especially given that most who are keen to deny it are normally nonreductivists about testimony.
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Yep yep yep
@rk_wiggs
I’ve discovered that a lot of theists don’t like it when you say you’d convert after having a religious experience because it implies that God is at least partially culpable for your nonbelief
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Not all appeals to authority are fallacious. This is what happens when your philosophical analysis consists in fallacy hunting without understanding. Do better
"It's a sophomoric mistake to suppose all appeals to authority are illegitimate."
-Wesley Salmon
@analyticatheism
@justinschiebs
@JustRickard
@waldenpod
Did you just appeal to an authority in order to justify your appeal to authority fallacy? What’s next, are you going to pool the masses about whether “appeal to consensus” is a fallacy?
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Genesis 19 is interesting. God is about to destroy an entire city. Abraham protests in defense of the righteous of the town as to whether such an act is just. God appears to bend to Abraham’s appeals again and again as he proposes an ever smaller proportion of righteous.
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If we’re stipulating that it was in fact liquid water, it has certain chemical properties incompatible with such an act. Either part of the water wasn’t actually water or he wasn’t literally walking ‘ON’ it. If a miracle, then he was being suspended by God to create the illusion.
Do you believe Jesus walked on water? If not, why not?
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It's common knowledge that, when you degrade the goodness of a system by doing the first morally wrong thing, it's parts will obviously grow fangs and claws and begin requiring the eating of each other's bodies to survive.
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I am choosing to interpret this tweet as Kevin implying that he steals Christmas trees and gifts for his children.
Why do atheists buy Christmas trees and gifts for their children?
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Some categories of nonbelief (in God).
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When I hear responses to the hiddenness argument involving claims that God would rest content with unexplicit or nonpersonal relationships with his loved ones, I’m reminded that, as Schellenberg puts it,
“Love looks not for excuses but for opportunities.”
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What would our planet look like without religion?
It would look like a planet without humans.
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Defense attorneys never use the aesthetics of a good, dramatic story to defend their clients against child neglect charges. Imagine the astonishment in the courtroom if one tried.
That’s the correct reaction to similar replies to the problem of evil.
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Naturalism is impossible to define because, on some views of God, He is a kitchen appliance with no inner life which seems consistent with naturalism.
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Draper and Nagasawa at Oklahoma City University.
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Having watched an extended exchange between Craig and
@DaleTuggy
the other day, strong is not the word I’d have used to describe Craig’s case relative to Tuggy’s.
First, why does Jesus need to claim to be God? Why not evaluate the available evidence?
Second, I hosted Dr. Craig’s class on the Trinity back in March. The case for the Trinity throughout the New Testament is very, very strong.
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“Rationality isn’t a matter of being right all the time; it’s a matter of doing the best you can with what you’ve got.”
K. Pearce
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*Background knowledge enters the chat*
Quick reminder that Naturalism doesn't predict suffering.
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I got to meet the excellent
@waldenpod
and
@WriterJohnBuck
yesterday. Honored to call them friends.
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If objective value is impossible without God, then, if God exists, persons only possess their value in virtue of their relation to God.
The intrinsic value of persons must be rejected.
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If God exists, human persons begin to exist at conception, and evils are allowed in the world for character building opportunities, the fact that most persons die as miscarriages is radically bizarre,
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Whatever else may be said about [theistic] explanations, they are not illegitimate merely because the being whose existence they posit cannot be observed.
(Dawes, 2009, p. 34)
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Some argue the problem of evil fails because God has no obligations, owes his creation nothing. However, as Jeff Jordan points out, this fails to rescue theistic traditions where God loves humans, “as no one would be indifferent concerning the pointless suffering of her beloved.”
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“While cognitive science of religion holds that belief in supernatural beings is natural, it does not privilege belief in the God of the Abrahamic monotheisms.” -De Cruz
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Maybe the context adds some important nuance but the statement tweeted here is absurd.
“Religion is completely incompatible with democracy.”—Nina Sankari, International Rationalists conference, April 28, 2024
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The claim that no sex scene can add to a story is plainly false.
The implied principle that, if something does not add to a story, there is no reason to include it in a movie is also plainly false.
Why do you think they put sex scenes in movies?
It adds nothing to the story.
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I’m working with a Christian friend of mine on an extended and fascinating dialogue on theodicy that I think people will appreciate.
Sorry for the slow releases currently.
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I learned today that I cannot be a naturalist because nobody can give a perfect definition.
In related news, I’ve never had a sandwich and I’ve never played a game.
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As a believer, I was always often insecure about prayer.
It often felt like I was talking to myself whereas everyone else seemed to be convinced there was another person there. That probably had something to do with my eventual loss of belief. I’ve prayed since then. No change.
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What fun is eating meat if we can’t also rest in the knowledge that it was produced by moral and environmental catastrophe?
BREAKING: Gov. Ron DeSantis supports cracking down on lab-grown meat as lawmakers consider bill to ban it
"You need meat. OK? We're gonna have meat in Florida [...] We're gonna have fake meat? That doesn't work. We're gonna make sure to do it right."
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Justin Brierley is moving on to other projects. He’s done a fantastic job hosting Unbelievable? and should be proud of the work he’s done encouraging thoughtful conversations on big topics. I do hope our paths cross again.
I look forward to seeing what you’re up to next, Justin.
I have some news… I’m moving on from Unbelievable! 😱😢😄
Keep in touch with my future projects at
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**NEW VIDEO**
There's been a lot of talk about the Argument from Divine Hiddenness as of late. As a result, Schellenberg's concept of a Nonresistant Nonbeliever has been getting increased attention. But, what exactly is a Nonresistant Nonbeliever?
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Well, our next release is going to be 3+ hours of meaty discussion of theodicy.
Hope you’re happy, jerks.
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Jesus never wrote a single blog.
Really makes ya think, doesn’t it?
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What would be causally sufficient to bring me to believe in God?
I’d guess some sort of immediate experience with something unambiguously personal and beautiful, steeped in a religious context, and with no clear defeaters at hand.
That would change EVERYTHING.
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Imagine thinking that the arena where the premortem phase of our lives play out is fine-tuned for soul-building opportunities while also thinking that most persons who come to exist in that arena pass into the next phase before ever leaving the womb.
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Importantly, even if you hold that profoundly delusional belief, it does not defeat the hiddenness argument.
Have a great day.
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The survival of known forms of life is incompatible with 99.999999% of the universe. Given this, the additional fact that the only known exceptions to this general rule are not moral agents but, rather, bacteria (like Deinococcus radiodurans) is very surprising if God exists.
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For those who understand God to be the very standard of justice, how is any sense to be made of this exchange?
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What if the eternal torment view of Hell was hinted at by scripture in order for God to see who among his sheep would enthusiastically defend the view as not only accurate but have an attitude of hope toward that accuracy, despite it running roughshod over the moral law within?
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“It's a sophomoric mistake to suppose all appeals to authority are illegitimate."
-Wesley Salmon
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The question is not whether an analogy contains differences from the issue it allegedly represents. It’s a trivial point that all analogies break down somewhere. The key question is whether the break occurs at a point relevant to the aim for which the analogy was employed.
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If I thought mind could be disembodied and creation ex nihilo was metaphysically possible , I’d likely be an aesthetic deist. It’s simpler and it doesn’t have to explain why a morally perfect being would allow the holocaust. An amoral playwright, not goodness personified.
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Do I want Christianity to be true? It’s complicated. For one, of course it would depend on which eschatological view we have in mind. A wide road to eternal hellfire should not be a hope of anyone. Yes - I’d be happy to learn that ultimate reality was good.(1/2)
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If you look close enough, you can see how resistant they are to the concept of theism which they haven’t heard of yet.
The indigenous inhabitants of North Sentinel Island, located in the Indian Ocean and roughly the size of Manhattan, have resided there for an estimated 55,000 years. Presently, the island is home to around 80 to 150 individuals. Regrettably, in November 2018, John Allen Chau, an
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Those who distinguish between the emotional and the intellectual problems of evil emphasize the pastoral importance of being present with those in the grips of emotional turmoil. However, many who suffer report not feeling God’s comforting presence. (1/2)
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In light of the fact that many do not feel God’s presence in their time of need, the emotional problem of evil is ALSO an intellectual problem of hiddenness. The reductive attempt to dismiss the emotional problem as JUST an emotional problem reveals a superficial treatment. (2/2)
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But if I learned ultimate reality saw a human sacrifice as satisfying in some way the sins of others, then my understanding of good must be profoundly off. What could I do but throw up my hands? Of right and wrong, I’d have no clue. Can I love what I don’t understand? (2/2)
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Imagine allowing two children in your care to viciously attack each other and then appealing to the aesthetic value of blood spatter or tragic story arcs to justify your policy of nonintervention.
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When he was an atheist he believed in God but didn't like that God kept 'showing up all the time and bothering him'.
In related news, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.
When I was an atheist, I wasn't aware of the problem of divine hiddenness, or the problem of evil. I wished God would stay more hidden, instead of showing up all the time and bothering me. And I assumed evil was natural, but was amazed by the appearance of good, from... where?
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Clearly not all human ignorance of God is due to refusal to teach or preach, or to listen to teaching or preaching, or to self-deception. Some are unmoved by preaching and in all honesty cannot see the force of such arguments as they have heard.
R. Swinburne
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A perfectly loving God seeks and is therefore at least open to personal relationship with some of his loved ones but, importantly, not others, for God’s friendship with the former group may at times require God’s hiding from the latter.
We hold finite parents to higher standards
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The notion of defeating evil after death can excuse a Good God limited in power who would try to give his creatures a life which is good as a whole despite the evils that infect their antemortem existence. It’s a course correction. Perfect beings need no such thing.
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Merry Christmas to all who Celebrate.
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If the free choice to enter relationship with God is so valuable, then why are the theists who affirm it so quick themselves to think God would rob us of that choice by appearing hidden to us, leaving us to conclude such a relationship was never actually an option?
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William Lane Craig travels all over debating non-experts in Philosophy of Religion.
But ignores Jeffrey Jay Lowder
http://t.co/KaVQW7o7U5
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REPORT: One of the most respected Christian philosophers doesn't even understand what theism is.
@Filoremy
@SpeedWatkins
@AleMartnezR1
@RealAtheology
I don’t care what Swinburne says. If he doesn’t think God is necessary, then he isn’t a theist.
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While the divine hiddenness argument has seen a resurgence in the popular discussion about God, few pop apologists have taken it seriously. To this Gavin is an exception even if, as I argue here, he has made a few mistakes in his recent video on the topic
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