Real Seekers

In this episode, I finish off this series with my own personal evaluation of Hume's two-step argument against the possiblity of rationally relying on testimonial evidence for religious miracles.    Looking at every single one of Hume's premises, I find them to be rife with unproven assumptions and fallacious reasoning; Hume's work on miracles should come with a little warning label saying, "Atheists and skeptics beware, relying on Hume will make you look quite foolish!"

In this episode, I go over the relevant background knowledge outlining David Hume's famous (or rather infamous) argument against testimonial evidence for miracles.  Furthermore, I outline world-renowned Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne's devastating critique of Hume's argument on this front.  Finally, I provide a general outline on some background knowledge about the modern philosophical feild known as the "Epistemology of Testimony".   In Part 2, I will provide my own in-depth evaluation/analysis, where I refute every single premise of Hume's outdated and utterly fallacious argument- let's just say I will conclusively demonsrate that Hume's argument on miracles lives up to its reputation as an "abject failure"!

I had some guests reschedule some shows or later in the month and so I figured I would put on a bonus solo show whereby I present and evaluate 3 Classical or Historical arguments for the existence of God.  Starting with Cosmological arguments, I first evaluate Thomas Aquinas' "2nd Way" argument showing that all natural things have an ultimate or uncaused effiecient cause (i.e., God) of their existence.  Next, I turn to Samuel Clarke's argument that even an infinite series of dependant things requires an independant external explanation of it's existence via God.  Finally, I switch gears and focus in on William Paley's famous argument from analogy for design via his "Watchmaker" analogy.

In this episode of TheoGeeks, David and I engage in the Egalitarianism (Dale) vs. Complementarianism (David R.) debate and discuss whether or not women can serve as Pastors or Elders in the church.

Continueing on with my series on trying to understand and address the objections of former Biblical Unitarian turned skeptic David Kemball-Cook, both David Russell and myself try to tackle his claim that the New Testament provides contrdictory teachings on the notion of salvific Predestination/Election vs. freewill as understood by Calvinists vs. Molinists.

Arif Khan, a friend of Barrie Schwortz, joins me to discuss his Pro-Shroud position from an Ahmadiyya Muslim perspective.  We assess many of the similarities and differences in the interpretations that Arif has from traditional Pro-Shroud christians in understanding the Shroud evidence.

In this bonus Shroud show, I decided to post up some bits of previous Shroud shows that I edited out due to irrelevancy and time constraints.  The first bit is a Q&A session that David Johnson asked me to do for my Shroud Solo Show Part 6 (obviously, on Real Seekers I fit the first part of Part 6 with my Part 7 show instead on RSM).  Additionally, I edited out the first section of my Shroud Wars Round 1 debate with Alan the fundy lay Shroud skeptic on the credibility of STURP (note this debate happened on the 40th anniversary).  I take the position that they were scientifically credible whereas Alan takes view that they were nothing but a bunch of "pseudo-scientific nutters".

Everyone's favorite biologist is back and this time he's argueing that the scientific data related to our brains and how they function shows that we have an immaterial mind/soul.  I post some of the papers he refers to on my Blog.  Enjoy :)

This week it's David Russell's turn to pick a topic and he wishes to do an in-depth analysis of the Beatitudes in Matt 5 and so we do so.  We go over things like the setting and meaning of being "poor in spirit" vs. "rich in spirit".

This week it's David Russell's turn to pick a topic and he wishes to do an in-depth analysis of the Beatitudes in Matt 5 and so we do so.  We go over things like the setting and meaning of being "poor in spirit" vs. "rich in spirit".