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Counter Apologetics
Counter Apologetics episodes
- CA76 The Incoherence of God (pt. III)
We complete our trilogy on igtheism and discuss epistemic questions about god’s attributes, the historical development of god’s nature, the experience of god, god’s relationship with logical truths, absence of evidence, and address the inevitable retreat into transcendence.
Follow me on Twitter @waldenpod
Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here
Rate the show on iTunes here
Support on Patreon here
Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here
Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com
Contact me at [email protected] or on Facebook
Music by Whalers and ichika Nito and was used with permission.
. . .
Unintelligible God – Reasonable Doubts [Podchaser]
Bart Ehrman on the Origins of the Trinity [YouTube]
Ozymandias Ramses II on Logical Truth and Omnipotence [YouTube]
Logical Truth and Omnipotence [Reasonable Faith]
YouTube Playlist on Igtheism [YouTube]
Atheism: A Philosophical Justification – Michael Martin [Amazon]
29 min - CA75 The Incoherence of God (pt. II)
We define our terms, address Graham Oppy’s claim that igtheism is self-defeating, discuss logical positivism and its relationship with igtheism, and present an igtheist divine hiddenness argument.
Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here
Rate the show on iTunes here
Support on Patreon here
Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here
Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com
Contact me at [email protected] or on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter @waldenpod
Music by ichika Nito and was used with permission.
. . .
Ozymandias Ramses II on Theological Noncognitivism – Steve McRae Show [YouTube]
Unintelligible God – Reasonable Doubts [Podchaser]
Rabbi Sherwin Wine coins the term ‘ignostic’ [New York Times]
Atheism: A Philosophical Justification – Michael Martin [Amazon]
Response to Matt Dillahunty’s Criticism of Igtheism [YouTube]
TMM on Igtheism [YouTube]
YouTube Playlist on Igtheism [YouTube]
Atheism: The Case Against God – George Smith [Google Books]
A Disproof of God’s Existence – Colin McGinn [Skeptic]
/ A Note on Terminology /
I use my terminology in a consistent way throughout. As I mentioned, there is no widely recognized standard usage, so it’s important for one to define at the start words like igtheist, incoherent, meaningless, etc. I’m using the terms igtheist, ignostic, and theological noncognitivist as interchangeable, since many already treat them as interchangeable, for better or worse. Trying to establish one as strictly referring to incoherence and another as strictly referring to meaninglessness seems like a hopeless struggle to me, but I apologize for any confusion that resulted from the use of ‘theological noncognitivist’. I only insist on distinguishing two branches of thought that are too often conflated: the related but distinct views that god’s attributes are meaningless and god’s attributes are incoherent. Respectively, one means god talk is without content and the other means god’s attributes don’t cohere, which assumes some content. I’m primarily interested in the latter.
40 min - CA74 The Incoherence of God (pt. I)
Can we make any sense of the idea of god? God is supposed to be an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, timeless, spaceless, immutable, disembodied conscious mind. We begin our series on igtheism by discussing several problems with these divine attributes. Is god unintelligible? Is this episode unintelligible? You’ll have to be the judge.
Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here
Rate the show on iTunes here
Support on Patreon here
Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here
Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com
Contact me at [email protected] or on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter @waldenpod
Music by ichika Nito and was used with permission.
/ Resources on Igtheism /
Atheism: A Philosophical Justification – Michael Martin [Amazon]
Ozymandias Ramses II on Theological Noncognitivism – Steve McRae Show [YouTube]
Response to Matt Dillahunty’s Criticism of Igtheism [YouTube]
TMM on Igtheism [YouTube]
YouTube Playlist on Igtheism [YouTube]
Atheism: The Case Against God – George Smith [Google Books]
A Disproof of God’s Existence – Colin McGinn [Skeptic]
22 min - CA73 Why Was Jesus Killed?
Why did the Romans kill Jesus? When I was a Christian, I was taught that the Jews were primarily responsible for the death of Jesus. The Romans may have carried it out, but it was ultimately motivated by Jesus’s conflict with Jewish authorities over his transgressions of Jewish law (calling himself god, blasphemy, etc.). Crucifixion, however, was a Roman punishment carried out by the Roman government for violating Roman laws — not a Jewish punishment carried out by Jewish authorities for violating Jewish laws. If Jesus was crucified, it was because he ran afoul of the Romans, not the Jews. So why did the Roman authorities want to execute Jesus?
We also discuss the historical Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, human sacrifice, and the bad faith of William Lane Craig.
This week I’ll also be appearing on Embrace the Void with Aaron Rabinowitz and The Right to Reason with Robert Stanley.
Past Easter episodes:
CA48 William Lane Craig’s Four Facts about the Resurrection
CA26 The Spread of Christianity
CA25 “Who would die for a lie?”
CA24 The Resurrection of Jesus
Is there historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus? (This is where Craig repeatedly lies about Joseph of Arimathea) [Reasonable Faith]
Why Was Jesus Killed? [Bart Ehrman Blog]
Anti-Judaism in the Gospels [Ehrman Blog]
Jesus Smuggling – Rationality Rules [YouTube]
Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here
Rate the show on iTunes here
Support on Patreon here
or if you prefer to give a one-time donation, you can do so with Venmo (@emersongreenpodcast)
Music by Whalers (theme) and ichika Nito (transitions) and was used with permission.
Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here
Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com
Contact me at [email protected] or on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter @waldenpod
23 min - CA72 Moral Luck and Free Will Skepticism with Aaron Rabinowitz
I’m joined by Aaron Rabinowitz of Embrace the Void and Philosophers in Space to discuss moral luck, moral judgement, and whether it’s ever justified to hate a person.
Our first discussion on The Right to Reason Podcast: https://therighttoreason.podbean.com/e/panpsychism-debate/
Thomas Nagel – Moral Luck [PDF]
Galen Strawson – Things That Bother Me [Amazon]
Moral Luck [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
You can listen to Aaron on Embrace the Void here and Philosophers in Space here
Follow Aaron on Twitter @ETVpod and Emerson @waldenpod
Free Will – Counter Apologetics (2017) [YouTube]
“Tumors all the way down” [Very Bad Wizards]
Listen to ichika Nito here
Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here
Rate the show on iTunes here
Support on Patreon here
Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here
Contact me at [email protected] or on Facebook
56 min - CA71 Leibniz’s Argument from Contingency
We discuss Occam’s Razor and simplicity, the principle of sufficient reason, and brute facts.
Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR): The principle that everything must have an explanation, reason, cause, or ground.
Brute fact: Something with no further explanation.
*Edit* I used “brute fact” to simply mean “explanatory termination” in this episode. A brute fact, however, even if it’s the place where our explanations ultimately come to an end, may not be true in all possible worlds. If it was true in all possible worlds, we wouldn’t call it a brute fact; we would call it a metaphysical necessity. In other words, if x is brute, x may not have been.
/ Leibniz’s Contingency Argument /
- Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence (either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause).
- If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God (a necessary being).
- The universe exists.
- Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence.
- Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God.
I reject the principle of sufficient reason (the first premise) because I think there must be at least one brute fact, and because the PSR is arguably self-refuting. I also don’t think the universe needs an explanation for its existence, assuming we’re defining universe in the broadest possible sense. I need to add that caveat because what has previously been called “the universe” may in fact only be a part of everything that exists. In the same way that scientists prematurely named certain particles “atoms,” only to find out later they were not in fact atoms, we may have prematurely named a part of the universe, “the universe.” Apologists will sometimes burn a lot of fuel arguing that “the universe” has an explanation, when they’re not really talking about everything that exists, ever has existed and ever will exist. If this all-encompassing whole is not “an arbitrary act of the mind,” then it could be a brute fact. And to be fair, if god existed, god could be a brute fact. But on grounds of simplicity alone, without even touching all the problems with the notion of god, nature or some aspect of nature is a better candidate than god as the place where our explanations ultimately come to an end.
William Lane Craig on Leibniz’s Contingency Argument [Reasonable Faith]
Leibnizian Contingency Argument – InspiringPhilosophy [YouTube]
Contingency Argument [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
Principle of Sufficient Reason [SEP]
. . .
New music used with permission from ichika Nito
ichika Nito’s YouTube channel
Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here
Rate the show on iTunes here
Support on Patreon here
Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here
Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com
Contact me at [email protected] or on Facebook
19 min - CA70 Why I Am Not A Christian (pt. II)In 1927, Bertrand Russell delivered a now-famous address entitled ‘Why I Am Not A Christian’. We examine Russell’s contribution to one of the most important questions you can ask yourself: should I be a Christian? Today we discuss the argument from design, the fine-tuning argument, the problem of evil, and the Euthyphro dilemma.“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. . . . This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.”Bertrand Russell – Why I Am Not A Christian [text]. . .Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod hereRate the show on iTunes hereSupport on Patreon hereor if you prefer to give a one-time donation, you can do so with Venmo (@emersongreenpodcast)Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube hereTranscripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.comContact me at [email protected] or on Facebook20 min
- CA69 Why I Am Not A Christian (pt. I)In 1927, Bertrand Russell delivered a now-famous address entitled ‘Why I Am Not A Christian’. We examine Russell’s contribution to one of the most important questions you can ask yourself: should I be a Christian? Today we discuss who counts as a Christian, the first cause argument (as well as a couple other arguments in the same family), and the natural law argument.“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. . . . This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.”Bertrand Russell – Why I Am Not A Christian [text]Galen Strawson and Robert Wright [YouTube]17 min
- CA68 Do Atheists Need Faith? with Ozymandias Ramses II
Ozy and I discuss whether atheists have faith, and whether it’s naive for atheists to hold a reflexively anti-faith position. We also discuss Hume’s problem of induction, external world skepticism, solipsism, properly basic beliefs, certainty, Alvin Plantinga’s Reformed foundationalism, reliabilism and our belief-forming mechanisms, presuppositionalism, movement atheism, and other various issues in epistemology.
You can subscribe to Ozy’s channel here [YouTube]
Ozy, Alex Malpass, and Matt Dillahunty [YouTube]
Ozy and Matt Dillahunty [YouTube]
Ozy on Real Atheology [YouTube]
. . .
Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here
Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here
Rate the show on iTunes here
Support on Patreon here
or if you prefer to give a one-time donation, you can do so with Venmo (@emersongreenpodcast)
Contact me at [email protected] or on Facebook
1 hr 52 min - CA67 Kalam Cosmological Argument: The Nature of Time
We discuss the A and B theories of time and how they relate to the kalam cosmological argument.
Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here
Rate the show on iTunes here
Support on Patreon here or give a one-time donation through Venmo (@emersongreenpodcast)
Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here
Contact me at [email protected] or on Facebook
Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com
. . . . .
A and B Theory of Time and the Kalam Argument – William Lane Craig [YouTube]
Why William Lane Craig Thinks Einstein Was Wrong – TMM [YouTube]
Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (pgs. 183-184) [PDF]
Brian Greene on the B-Theory of Time [YouTube]
Sean Carroll on Eternalism vs. Presentism [YouTube]
Sean Carroll on the KCA [YouTube]
NOVA – How an eclipse proved Einstein right [YouTube]
Complete solution to the Twins Paradox – minutephysics [YouTube]
17 min
About Counter Apologetics
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with Emerson Green