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Counter Apologetics
Counter Apologetics episodes
- CA94 Logical Fallacies?
Take a look at nearly any book on critical thinking and you’ll come across a list of fallacies: ad hominem, argument from ignorance, appeal to emotion, appeal to authority, post hoc ergo propter hoc, god of the gaps, and so on. The problem is that many of these “fallacies” closely resemble good lines of reasoning. Overreliance on fallacy lists – common practice in the skeptic community – fosters shallow criticism, distracts from the substance of an issue, and doesn’t even accomplish the ostensible purpose of demarcating good and bad reasoning.
I’m hard on skeptics in this episode, but that’s because I used to lean on this crutch myself. Over time, the usefulness of this approach struck me as less and less credible, and talk about fallacies tapered off. Fortunately, philosophers like Maarten Boudry and Michael Huemer, whose work you can find below, explained in clear terms what is so unhelpful about this mode of thinking. “Fallacy theory,” as Boudry calls it, is only one feature of a shallow, facile mode of philosophizing, one which isn’t very conducive to a genuine search for truth. I would suggest that one way of improving the quality of our discourse would be to lay off the fallacy accusations a bit. It would lead to a more fruitful search for knowledge and understanding.
After the first five minutes or so of big picture criticism, the bulk of the episode is dedicated to concrete examples, focusing on the ad hominem fallacy, ad populum, “correlation does not imply causation” – the post hoc ergo propter hoc (or cum hoc) fallacy – and begging the question.
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The Fallacy Fork: Why It’s Time to Get Rid of Fallacy Theory – Maarten Boudry
Playing Fallacy “Gotcha!” – Maarten Boudry
Knowledge, Reality, and Value: A Mostly Common Sense Guide to Philosophy – Michael Huemer
The Fake, the Flimsy, and the Fallacious: Demarcating Arguments in Real Life – Maarten Boudry, Fabio Paglieri & Massimo Pigliucci
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Transcript
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33 min - Meager Moral Fruits Discussion – Guest Appearance on Jonathan MS Pearce’s Show
Jonathan MS Pearce is an author, speaker, and columnist who recently wrote an article on the meager moral fruits argument. Jonathan invited me on his YouTube channel, A Tippling Philosopher, to speak about the argument and a few common criticisms offered in response to it. We also discuss state atheism, liberalism, favorite books, and open theism.
The interview on YouTube
My version of the argument
Jonathan’s article
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2 hr 19 min - CA93 Is Mormonism the Best Version of Christianity? — with Tarik D. LaCour
Tarik D. LaCour is a Ph.D. student in philosophy and an M.S. student in psychology. He is a philosopher and cognitive scientist whose primary research interests are in the philosophy of psychology, cognitive science, and bioethics. He also writes about politics “from a conservative point of view,” and also on religion, from his perspective as a member of the LDS Church. Here’s an excerpt from a profile in Public Square Magazine entitled “A Latter-day Saint Empiricist”:
“LaCour is a growing figure in the Latter-day Saint intellectual community, no doubt largely due to the unexpected nature of his takes on almost everything. His social media leaps from brooding observations on science and philosophy to deadpan quips about politics and sports. In fact, the way LaCour evades easy categorization is surely part of his draw. He’s pessimistic, but not cynical. He cares about social justice but frequently deviates from popular narratives. … He’s a devout member of the Church, but openly embraces scientism (his Twitter handle is @realscientistic).”
Tarik and I discuss the LDS worldview and how it differs from other forms of Christianity. Mormons have deep disagreements with other Christians about the nature of God, soteriology, the afterlife, and much else. Further, these differences may provide philosophical advantages that favor Mormonism relative to other versions of Christianity. Tarik and I also discuss his scientism, empiricism, and eliminativism, and how these views intersect with his Mormonism.
Watch on YouTube here
The Scientistic Stance
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Music by ichika Nito & Whalers. Used with permission.
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A few thoughts on Mormonism
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1 hr 48 min - CA92 The Meager Moral Fruits Argument
Does Christianity bear the kind of fruit one might expect if it were true? Does naturalism or Christian theism better predict the moral fruits and lack thereof that we actually observe? Naturalists would expect Christianity to produce a mixed bag, like any other man-made institution. Christianity leads one to form loftier expectations.
There’s much more to say about this argument than we cover today, but we manage to lay out the essential core of the argument: a Theological Premise, an Empirical Premise, and a Moral Premise. The Theological Premise is, roughly speaking, the claim that Christianity should bear appreciable moral fruit, and that Christian theism and naturalism make different predictions: they lead us to form different expectations about the world. The Empirical Premise is meant to establish some relevant fact about the world. The Moral Premise affirms a moral fact or normative judgment. We defend each of these premises and work the meager moral fruits argument into a cumulative case for naturalism.
“I might believe in the Redeemer if his followers looked more redeemed.” – Nietzsche
For a discussion of Paul Draper’s original argument from meager moral fruits, see my video on Draper’s Case for Naturalism
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Music by ichika Nito & Whalers. Used with permission.
Transcript
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21 min - Is Free Will An Illusion? with Theoretical BullshitI’m joined by Scott Clifton (Theoretical Bullshit) to discuss free will skepticism, compatibilism, moral responsibility, revenge, and killing coyotes.Video version – Is free will an illusion?Scott’s channelFollow me @waldenpod and TBS @TheoreticalBSConsider supporting Counter Apologetics here or Walden Pod herelinktr.ee/emersongreen2 hr 42 min
- CA91 Why won’t God heal amputees?
For the believer who advances the argument from miracles, the question of why God won’t heal amputees can be a thorn in the side. If God is willing to perform healing miracles – miracles that should convince anyone – why hasn’t God restored the lost limbs of amputees?
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Transcript
Music by ichika Nito & Whalers. Used with permission.
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24 min - From Young Earth Creationist to Atheist – Guest Appearance on Answers in Reason
Original video on YouTube – From YEC to Atheist
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2 hr 31 min - CA90 Hell: Eternal Conscious Torment
I argue that the notion of eternal conscious torment (ECT) leads to absurdities, and that theists can easily avoid these absurdities by abandoning ECT. For example, a believer in ECT must defend the following proposition: “A perfectly good, merciful, just, and loving God superintends the eternal conscious torment of human beings.” This proposition is incoherent simply in virtue of the meaning of those words. (The word “superintend” implies responsibility without suggesting that God is directly involved in the minutia of operations.) If a being oversees the eternal torment of humans, that being is not perfectly loving, good, merciful, or just. But these divine attributes are far more central to theism than ECT. Since ECT leads to conflicts with core aspects of theism, and since ECT is not itself a core aspect of theism, theists should not believe ECT.
So, either God doesn’t exist, and there isn’t anything to worry about; or God exists, and we shouldn’t fear eternal conscious torment precisely because the God of theism exists. If God’s nature is anything like theists have traditionally affirmed – good, merciful, just, and loving – eternal conscious torment is not a feature of the world.
Whether atheists or theists are right, there is no reason to be afraid of eternal conscious torment.
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Glenn Peoples vs. Ben Watkins on Hell, Annihilationism, and Universalism
Ben Watkins – Brief on Hell
Transcript
Music by ichika Nito & Whalers. Used with permission.
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17 min - CA89 Why I don’t spend more time on contingency arguments
Arguments from contingency are widely considered to be among the strongest offered in defense of God. The results of the 2020 PhilPapers Survey have cosmological arguments ranked as the strongest family of arguments for theism. So why don’t I spend more time worrying about cosmological and contingency arguments?
Even those unfamiliar with cosmological arguments will have encountered the perennial “Why is there something rather than nothing” out in the wild. If a theist wants to know why there is something rather than nothing, then, for the sake of argument, I’ll say that however they explain the existence of God, that’s how I explain the existence of nature.
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Philip Goff – responding to Joanna LeidenhagGraham Oppy – An argument for atheism from naturalismGraham Oppy – The Best Argument Against GodFollow me on Twitter @waldenpodTranscript (w/ links & references)Music by ichika Nito & Whalers. Used with permission.linktr.ee/emersongreen14 min - What is Naturalism? – Walden PodNaturalists, according to David Papinau, author of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on naturalism, urge “that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing ‘supernatural’.” Naturalism “has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy” beyond this, along with an emphasis on science as a means to understand the natural world.Naturalism is the view that there is only the natural world. I defend this simple conception of naturalism, ward off a few criticisms, and argue that there’s a kind of parity between the terms “theism” and “naturalism.” In other words, if you don’t have a problem with the term “theism,” you shouldn’t have a problem with “naturalism.”Originally posted on Walden Pod – subscribe herewatch the video hereLuke Roelofs – Combining Minds: How to Think about Composite SubjectivityIs God the Best Explanation of Things? A Dialogue – Joshua Rasmussen & Felipe Leon (this wasn’t mentioned in the episode, but Leon does a wonderful job fleshing out “liberal naturalism”Graham Oppy – The Best Argument Against GodSean Carroll – Poetic NaturalismGalen Strawson – Real NaturalismWilliam Lycan – Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary IntroductionNaturalism – SEP/ / /
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/ / /a few elaborations of naturalism…“By ‘naturalism’ I mean the view that the world contains a single basic type of stuff, whose behavior is governed by a single set of simple, general laws, and that these laws are those revealed by science. The most common version of naturalism among contemporary philosophers is physicalism, the view that the world is entirely made up of matter, and matter is exhaustively described by physics. But some philosophers reject physicalism, even while accepting naturalism, holding that matter is not exhaustively described by physics—there are fundamental aspects of matter that physics is blind to. In particular (they tend to say), there are certain things each of us can know about matter, such as that one particular portion of matter (the one between our ears) sometimes feels and thinks and experiences, which go beyond both what physics itself says and what can be deduced from any physical description, no matter how detailed. Because facts about my consciousness are left out by any purely physical descriptions, these ‘naturalistic anti-physicalists’ infer that consciousness must be itself a fundamental feature of reality, no more derivable from physical properties than mass is derivable from charge.”Luke Roelofs“Naturalism is a philosophy according to which there is only one world — the natural world, which exhibits unbroken patterns (the laws of nature), and which we can learn about through hypothesis testing and observation. In particular, there is no supernatural world — no gods, no spirits, no transcendent meanings. I like to talk about a particular approach to naturalism, which can be thought of as Poetic. By that I mean to emphasize that, while there is only one world, there are many ways of talking about the world. “Ways of talking” shouldn’t be underestimated; they can otherwise be labeled “theories” or “models” or “vocabularies” or “stories,” and if a particular way of talking turns out to be sufficiently accurate and useful, the elements in its corresponding vocabulary deserve to be called real.”Sean Carroll“Naturalism says that causal reality is natural reality: the domain of causes is nothing more nor less than the natural world. Atheism says that there are no gods; in consequence, atheism says that there is no God. Naturalism entails atheism: if causal reality is natural reality, then there is no (supernatural) cause of natural reality, and, in particular, there is no God. But atheism does not entail naturalism: to deny that there are gods is not to insist that causal reality is natural reality. . . . Supernaturalism says that causal reality outstrips natural reality: there are supernatural causes. . . . This ‘minimal’ conception of naturalism relies on a prior understanding of the distinction between the natural and the supernatural (as did our ‘minimal’ conception of theism). We shall proceed on the assumption that we do understand this distinction well enough. If we come to have doubts about whether we do understand this distinction well enough, then we can return to give it more careful consideration. ‘Minimal naturalism’ admits of elaboration in many different – mutually inconsistent – ways. Any suitably elaborated naturalism will hold that some features of the natural world are primitive – not susceptible of further explanation – whereas other features of the natural world are fully explained in terms of those primitive features. Thus, for example, some naturalists suppose that all of the primitive features of the natural world are physical features – i.e. features that lie in the proper domain of the discipline of physics. Other naturalists suppose that there are features of the natural world . . . that cannot be fully explained in terms of the fundamental physical properties. The key point to note is that all naturalists suppose that there are no supernatural causal properties…”Graham Oppy23 min
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