Think Harder Not Smarter

Dan and Ryan talk about Dan's latest book which is about why Dan left the Christian faith over a decade ago. They also talk about a couple of Christian apologists who had a lot to say in response to Dan's first book.

Politely Rejecting Jesus is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in both paperback and ebook form. The audio book will be available soon!

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Picking up where the last episode left off, Dan continues his discussion of cosmological arguments for atheism. In this episode he talks about an argument from Quentin Smith which accepts the Kalam Cosmological Argument for a cause of the universe, but which attempts to show that the universe is its own cause.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The Cambridge Companion to Atheism edited by Michael Martin
  • ch. 11, "Kalam Cosmological Arguments for Atheism" by Quentin Smith

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Ryan is currently on a quest to rescue the New Year Baby with the help of Caveman and Ben Franklin, so Dan tackles a couple of philosophical arguments for atheism. The first is a version of (or response to) the Kalam Cosmological Argument which suggests that the universe can't possibly have a cause.

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Does everything have an explanation? What about the clown ghost that seems to be haunting Ryan? These are Very Important Questions and Dan and Ryan will do their best to get to the bottom of them as they talk about another version of the cosmological argument for God's existence. (As for the ghost, he is welcome to set up a third mic and join the discussion.)

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Can someone really hire an infinite number of assassins to take out Ryan? Also where did the universe come from? These are the questions that Dan and Ryan try to get to the bottom of in talking about the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which is a prominent argument for the existence of God.

Resources mentioned/used in this episode:

• The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland
  • Ch 2: "The Leibnizian cosmological argument" by Alexander R. Pruss
  • Ch 3: "The kalam cosmological argument" by William Lane Craig and James Sinclair
• This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories that Are Blocking Progress, edited by John Brockman
  • "Entropy" by Bruce Parker
• Hilbert's Hotel and Infinity by drcraigvideos
• A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
• "The Kalam Cosmological Argument" by William Lane Craig (website)
• Question of the Week #336: "Honesty, Transparency, Full Disclosure" and the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem by William Lane Craig

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Ryan sinks deeper into the world of depressing holiday specials while Dan reels from the horror of Meta's ill-fated AI-generated Instagram account. Then the two get to work in discussing a variety of informal logical fallacies.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Informal Logical Fallacies: A Brief Guide by Jacob E. Van Vleet

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Three ghosts visited Ryan in one night and convinced him to keep doing this podcast, meanwhile Dan can't get any ghosts to visit him. Also, Dan and Ryan talk about a YouTube video that claims to show how science disproves free will.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• "Free Will" by Mark Balaguer
• "Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will" by Robert Sapolsky
• "Neuroscience of free will" on Wikipedia
• "Science Suggests Free Will Doesn't Exist" from Ben Miles on YouTube

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Seems like our old pals Smith and Jones are at it again, this time baking cookies with potentially deadly results. Also, we can't seem to stop ourselves from dunking on the late Stephen Hawking. But can we be blamed? Or did the universe make us do it?

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Do we have free will? If not, then who should we blame for the movie where Nicolas Cage plays a Vegas magician who can see two minutes into the future? Personally, I blame Ryan.

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What do evolution, a cat named Nacho, and 108 philosophy podcasts all have to do with the problem of skepticism? I'd tell you but I don't know anything.

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