Religious discussion and scattershot argumentation

In this video, I talk about a common style of discussion that only serves to obscure rational discourse. I'll post a longer description sometime, but for now, this'll have to do.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• theism
• atheism
• religion
• God
• logic
• philosophy
• apologetics
• Bible

[EvaSlash]

Ok so everything is fined tuned in the universe but our Earthly world is filled with crime, pollution, and ignorance and is a total utter mess? Hmmm makes you think.

[grammastola]

"Ok so everything is fined tuned in the universe but our Earthly world is filled with crime..."

Eva, I think you're responding to the wrong video. As a rule, I choose to keep the discussions on topic, precisely to prevent the scattershot argumentation of which I complained in this video.

As for your objection, crime, pollution, ignorance, etc. are the result of human free will. God can also have ultimate reasons for allowing that, as discussed in the works of Alvin Plantinga.

[adipiscor]

I cannot deny that the extremely specific, not to say narrow, points of information that you generally argue for are balanced, interesting and intelligent, but would you be interested in perhaps tackling one of these meatier questions? I'm sure a lot of people would want to hear a discussion about whether Jesus was indeed "divine", and for some of us, what that actually means in the first place. Thank you very much.

[grammastola]

Thank you for your comment, adipiscor, and for understanding why I choose to address very specific issues. Regarding the "meatier" questions of which you spoke, I've already addressed some of them (e.g. the anthropic principle, theistic arguments from design, multiple universe explanations) in other videos. Regarding the divinity of Christ, that will come in an upcoming video, though it will take several weeks. (I've got a lot of backlog!)

[ferguda]

I like this guy. I wish I knew more Christians like him. It's a world of information out there and if we Christians aren't prepared to give answers who have legitimate questions we aren't doing what we have been called to do.

[mayartay]

It seems to me like atheists don't know how to do anything other than fire out arguments like scattershot. You can see it in Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and and Michael Shermer's Why Darwin Matters. Scientists or not, they either don't have good thinking skills or they are intentionally choosing to attack mostly straw man arguments and irrelevant arguments. Those are the only books I've read by atheists lately, but like you say it's all over YouTube.

[rpavich]

thank you very much for this, (and all) of your videos...they are valuable for equipping the Christian.

God bless.

bob

[elagentenumerouno]

I like this guy in the video, that it's one of the mayor problem when I talk to proud seeners about God, or about the importance of God's laws in the goverment, and teaching the truth to students at school.

[GENERAL1002]

LoL, so true man! Deserves more than 1000 views.

[MrEpictetus]

Ive read Plantinga's problem of evil.

Your work is outstanding, you must be a reformed presuppositionalist.

Samuel Clark, Boyle Lectures 1706 says there are three kinds of atheists

1. the intellectually destitute

2. the morally destitute

3 those who think atheism is a superior argument.

Its impossible to reason with the first two. Romans 9.

Your work Ive seen so far is very consistent.

[Evangelander]

What you are calling scattershot argumentation is also known as redirection. This may sometimes be intentional, but I think, more often, it is because they cannot truly refute what you are saying and to the deeper thinker, their ignorance of the "topic under discussion" is made very evident, which, in turn, substantiates your view.

I understand that you might have reasons for disabling your comments, but I find it troubling for those of us who might later discover your channel.

[Evangelander]

Right on. We should always be "ready" to give a reason for the hope that is withn us.

God bless you.

[harrycarayhere]

Ya need to get some posters on that wall, Prof.