No, David Hume’s Treatise Against Miracles is Not Knock-down Argument

The apostle Paul said that Christianity stands or falls on the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. (1 Corinthians 15:14) Yet for many religious skeptics, any argument made for a miracle is a project doomed from the start. It simply cannot get off the ground. Why is that the case? Enter the famous Scottish philosopher David Hume. In 1748 Hume wrote a short essay called Of Miracles. Hume vigorously argued that one can ever rationally believe a miracle claim because there is always more evidence that one did not occur. Michael Shermer has gone so far to say that “I think his treatise against miracles is pretty much a knockdown argument. Everything else is … Read more

No, the Question “who Made God?” is Not a Knock-down Refutation to the Cosmological Argument

One of the most astonishing facts that scientists have discovered over the last 100 years is that all physical reality began to exist in the finite past. Before big bang cosmology, scientists thought that the universe existed eternally. While there are still a few Christians who get a little squeamish about the Big Bang theory, I like to tell them that the Big Bang is your friend, not an enemy. Far from disproving the existence of God, the theory shows that all space, time and matter began to exist. If that’s the case, then the required cause of space, time and matter can’t depend on space, time and matter. Let that sink in a little. … Read more

The Christian and the Euthyphro Dilemma

One of the arguments raised against God being the basis for morality is the age-old Euthyphro Dilemma. Socrates, in Plato’s dialogue, asks Euthyphro: “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” The modern adaptation raised against theism goes something like this: “Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?” The Catch-22 for the theist is this: God could command any arbitrary thing that popped into his head – like killing kittens – and we’d be obligated to obey and call it good because God says … Read more

Is Jesus Alive?