Two common fallacies that people commit in discussions (and attacks) on God and religion

[lowellkylewilliamson]

Don't apologize for offending people if it's truth that offends them.

[Logosapologetica]

Friend. I am the same Emerson from Stephendemille channel. I am the Emerson from Logos Apologetics in Brazil.

[StephenDeMille]

Your videos are very good, my friend. I have a apologetic channel, the Logos Apologetics (youtube com logosapologetica). Please, subscribe in there.

[SeraphsWitness]

Are you going to make more videos soon? You're one of my favorite apologists, and I miss your material!

[grammastola]

@SeraphsWitness Thanks so much. I've got some material that I'd like to tackle, but precious little time. I'll see what I can do.

[girlof47]

@SeraphsWitness

WATCH THIS GOOD APOLOGETIC VIDEO: rigged dice

[swisscheesepotatochi]

On what basis do you make your claim that there is very little philosopher support for his book? Could you cite your sources...

[grammastola]

@swisscheesepotatochi The Wikipedia entry for "The God Delusion" is a good start. The reviews with philosophy credentials (Plantinga, Ruse, McGrath, Orr, etc) were less than enthused. As I said, Dennett is the only philosopher I've found who actually endorses the book, and even his treatment was shallow.

If this book truly were masterful, one might expect to see an outpouring of support from professional philosophers. The silence has been noteworthy, though.

[swisscheesepotatochi]

@grammastola Didn't read plantinga or ruse, but i read mcgrath's...and it was poor, most of the book was ad hominem attacks on dawkins...And im not part of the philosophy circle, so i have no idea if they support him or not...

[grammastola]

@swisscheesepotatochi I don't agree with your evaluation of McGrath's book, though I do think that he could have been more thorough. As for the rest, their reviews are mostly available online. I do recommend the ISIS review that I mentioned by Michael Ruse (who is an atheist himself, as I mentioned, and deeply disappointed in Dawkins' reasoning). One has to pay a fee to download it, though.

[swisscheesepotatochi]

@grammastola aiyai...money i don't have...

[grammastola]

@swisscheesepotatochi The Wikipedia entry for this book is a good place to start. A thorough Google search also shows that among the reviewers with scholarly credentials in philosophy, there has been scant support of this book.

[swisscheesepotatochi]

If im not wrong, what dawkins was trying to say is that stalin and lenin's atheism were a coincidence and not a motivation for their works...whereas religious extremists use a twisted form of their religion to perpetrate...what he could not see was atheism being the cause for these crimes similar to religious ones...

[ShadowEspada]

Again I love your videos, I think its a good idea for you to moderate your comments. I know that when I make videos, the comments are very poorly constructed and always lead to needless insults and arguments

[grammastola]

As logicians often say, ridicule is not rebuttal. Note that the response from "thisguysajerk" amounts to nothing more than ridicule and insult throwing. The fact that he describes Jesus as "a zombie" (despite the obvious differences) demonstrates that he is using ridicule in place of actual reason.

[thisguysajerk]

i love how you want to talk about logic and yet you believe in basically a zombie.

you want to talk about "reason from your gut instead of going by what is strictly logical"?

excuse me mr? you believe that 2,000 years ago a god impregnated a human with "himself" and then died, but wait... not really, because he's god and he can just come back to life! like a zombie. then disappear back up to heaven (is up? heaven?) and ... derrr... wow logical alright.

you are so logical... uh-huh. i'm santa.

[teenspirit1]

I see no criticism, just `Blah blah sloppy blah blah`

[ferrett78]

Thank you for the video. Im always disappointed when I see Atheists using improper logic against religion (I should point that I am Atheist myself). I know that I am probably guilty of such things on occasion too, but Im always happy for these errors to be pointed out to me. The one thing I would have suggested though, was that you may have reached more atheists (who iI believe would be your target demographic here) if your title had been "...attacks) on religion or atheism".

[audiedrdoom]

Dude it's people like you that this world needs.

Keep making this vids, you rock dude

[philos71]

Great video! Good job.

[SeraphsWitness]

I miss your videos! When are you going to come back?!

Do you know of any good sources for Christian apologetics concerning Buddhism?

[forestskog]

grammastola I caught a couple of your videos. I really enjoy them you seem like a great guy and a truly intelligent man. I'm not religious in any normal sense but just know that Youtube comments are probably not indicative of how people feel in real life. You certainly are in no way shape or form some kind of enemy or bad person for your religious conclusions that would be absurd.

[truevoiceofsanity]

hmmm. cool. I'll look ur dawkins vidt then, if u really caught him on such a trivial point,

I agree about hasty generalization but its far more frequently used by theists; e.g., DeSoussa, Lane Craig, and numerous others who cite the evils of Pot Paul, Mao, Stain as proof atheism leads to evil. ;)

The main attack against christianity there is SPAG, self projective as God; i.e., no true scotsman

[grammastola]

I have to strongly disagree with your evaluation. For one thing, what you're describing is not an case of the "hasty generalization," as that is an utterly unnuanced summary of their view. It would be a hasty generalization if they were to say that all atheists are evil or something similar, but that is not what they claim. (Further discussion would be straying far afield of this particular video and better suited for another forum.)

[truevoiceofsanity]

you gave the example of ppl seeing bad christians and generalizing about christianity.

I gave the flip side. How are they not the same. you lost me?

I didn't go into the moral law, if that's wat your infering. In that case, sure better addressing that elsewhere. ;)

[grammastola]

How are they not the same? I think it's fairly obvious.

Suppose someone said, "Look at Lenin and Stalin! They were evil. This means that atheists are evil." THAT would be an example of hasty generalization, and I condemn that kind of reasoning.

That's not what Craig et al say, though. Rather, their response is more nuanced. They say that the evidence points toward more evil having been perpetuated by atheistic systems than by religion. That's not the same argument at all.

[LaneCh]

Glad to see you back!

[christianunity]

Very good video Grammastola. Good to see you're back. I don't know why, but I don't see my comments appear. So if you're getting a comment from me for the 3rd time, I apologize. Might I suggest that your next video be on arguing the existence of God through the testimony given by certain Saints? For example, how do you explain people saw the wounds of Christ on Padre Pio for 50 years, doctors analysed them, but when he died no scars of holes could be seen on his hand? Now that is evidence!

[JainaKay]

It's good to see you back! Sometimes I just need to hear a bit of relentless logic to turn my brain back around to where it should be, and to remind me that even if God is bigger than anything I could ever know, he has been gracious enough to give me the ability to know a great deal, if only I take advantage of it.

[theman77777777232]

yipee!

[aifnord]

May I make a request? I love your highly analytical approach, but I prefer it when it's applied to more "meaty" subjects. This video on logical fallacies for instance, I agree fully with what you've said in it, but I haven't really learned anything new after watching it and there's not a lot to think of afterwards.

Whether you feel it's worthwhile to honor such a request, I suppose is up to your targeted demographic. In any case, it's nice to see you're back to making videos!

[grammastola]

Actually, I agree, which is why I also recently published a video on the authorship of the Pauline epistles. I try to provide a mix of meatier and lighter topics, but I prefer the meatier stuff.

And honestly, the main why I produce some of these lighter videos is that a lot of people (esp hostile respondents) seem to have a hard time grasping these basics. If not for that, I'd devote much more time to the meatier topics that you prefer.

[brokennarcissist]

Lol, Atheist-Cons, Dawkins inspires fanboys not critical thinkers.

Keep up the good fight.

[Blogrich55]

Good job. Logic is so very important in dealing with Bible study and apologetics. God bless you.

[h8uall66]

Been a long time since you made a video! I agree with all of your logic. Unfortunately, I already know that a lot of people are going to get upset and readdress points you made in your video, and many will even assume that you are generalizing all atheists or believers, even though you took special pains to ensure that you only addressed specific arguments used by specific individuals. That saddens me a little.

[MetaphysicsAddict]

wow, you're still alive! nice to see you making videos again.

[ViciousAnimus]

I'd just like to comment that the blog you have linked on your profile no longer works, assuming you've either stopped blogging or something went wrong. So I'm wondering if you have another blog or write articles somewhere?

Excellent video. Great to see you back.

[grammastola]

The blog still works. For some reason though, YouTube seemed to link to it differently (adding the period to the URL), so I fixed that. Thanks.

[TorsoManza]

oh my gosh its been so long since you mad a video