CADRE Comments

Warning!--a long and dense post is approaching. Several weeks ago, I posted up ( here on the Cadre Journal ) a revision of Richard Carrier's deductive anti-theistic argument from suffering, which he attempted during his debate with Tom Wanchick a few years ago (which for reference can be found here at the Secular Web. ) Now comes the commentary, where I take some time to explain the tactical and strategic applications of my revision. For an even longer commentary, where I discuss in more detail why I made the revisions I did, as well as discuss the level of similarity to Richard’s original argument, please see the doc file posted in the second comment of this thread at www.evangelicaluniversalist.com. The thread’s initial post is the revised argument found here on the Cadre as well. Note: all argument element references afterward in this article, such as P1 or C1, refer afterward to the elements of my revision of Richard's argument, not to the element labels given by Richard t...

I've been busy in recent months writing as an invited guest-author (on orthodox Christian universalism) over at the Evangelical Universalist forum ; so I haven't had much time (or energy {g}) to contribute new articles here. But my friend Professor Victor Reppert has been posting up new and previous articles on arguments from evil (especially the deductive kind), for his students and readers, at DangIdea recently (as he tends to do about twice a year); and this reminded me that I've been meaning for some time to post up a deductive variation of the anti-theistic argument from suffering that I myself came up with a while ago. (A set of anti-theistic deductive arguments from evil, linked to by Victor during the discussion, can also be found collected by Jeff Lowder at the Secular Web here. ) This is an expanded, detailed and amplified form of an argument my sometime-previous-sparring partner, Richard Carrier, was attempting to make a couple of years ago in the opening statem...

Dr. Keith Parsons, an old sparring partner of mine from pre-journal days, and mutual friend of Victor Reppert (who has known and debated him a heck of a lot longer than I have), has decided to join several of his Secular Web fellows in contributing to their online journal (hosted by Blogger), The Secular Outpost. For his opening post, and in honor of a nephew of his (evangelical Christian "of the progressive Jim Wallis type") who asked him to explain briefly why he is an atheist, Keith has submitted an Atheist Manifesto , and has called for some comments on it. Victor has provide his own brief opening reply here , where it overlaps Victor's current-semester discussions and reposts about the Cosmological Argument. (The recently reposted debate in the comments of this post here between Steve Lovell and Exapologist is quite good, too.) I like KP a lot, as well as several other SecWeb correspondents of my experience (Jim Lippard comes immediately to mind, among others.) I...