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The truth : Even ancient thinkers recognized that the earth was tiny in relation to the immense cosmos. In any case, size doesn’t necessarily mean significance, as many theologians and philosophers recognized. ~ Dr. Michael Newton Keas Last time , I posted about a book dealing with science, history and Christianity that had graciously been made available for free both through Academia.com and Amazon.com by Dr. Michael Newton Keas entitled Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion . As part of that blogpost, I quoted part of the book’s introduction where Dr. Keas raised the supposed problem for God’s existence arising from the existence of an insignificantly small Earth in an almost incomprehensibly vast universe. He identified the myth: “Premodern scholars in the Western tradition thought the universe was small—a cozy little place just for human benefit. Modern science displaced this Church-sanctioned belief with a vast cosmos that revealed humans ...

I am going to say something that many people will not immediately accept, and I fully imagine that I will catch grief for saying it. But here it goes: People are constantly spreading untruths about Christianity. I know, I know. For some readers this is a real shocker. They have been told by other non-Christians certain “truths” about God, the Bible and Christianity, and they had no reason to believe that they were untrue. I mean, c’mon, we all know that Christopher Columbus proved that the Earth was really round to the stunned disbelief of the anti-science, flat-earth believing Church, right? Except that it isn’t what happened at all . The new resource is from Dr. Michael Newton Keas, who earned a PhD in the history of science from the University of Oklahoma, presently serves as an adjunct professor of the history and philosophy of science at Biola University, and who is a senior fellow of Discovery Institute. Dr. Keas has made available for free his book, Unbelievable: 7 My...

Last week , I started to dig into Jerry Coyne's argument that:   ...music, literature and poetry don’t produce any truths about the universe that don’t require independent verification by empirical and rational investigation: that is, through science (broadly interpreted).  These fine arts don’t convey to us anything factual about the world unless those facts can be replicated by reason, observation or experiment. 1 While H.G Well's The World Set Free inspired the creation of the atomic bomb that ended World War II early and saved millions of lives, under Coyne's contention there is no knowledge in that book, or the millions of lives saved or in history itself. Are the events of history and mass deaths classifiable as knowledge?  Coyne is in a bit of a quandry here. There's no way to run World War II multiple times, with and without the use of atomic weapons, to see whether the cold war and arms races still happen or what replaces Godzilla. Ther...

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2019 Atheists have been making the IQ argument for Some Time. They are still making it. The idea that atheists tend to score higher on IQ tests than theists is widely accepted in social sciences but it is not generally known how much atheist activists have contributed to the research.  There is one major study, using meta analysis, that establishes the overall correlation the  most corroboration is from minor studies. When that major study first came out, the study by Miron Zuckerman, I gave a two part devastating critique. [1]  Not only do my original criticisms still hold but there is still no real groundswell but only the assumptions of atheists whose support is more ideological than scholarly. Gregory Webster and Ryan Duffy, at first glance,  seem  to list other major studies that corroborate but in reality,However,  Zuckerman and Lynn et al are the only two they name that actually deal with IQ and religious belief....

Antarctica may be spectacular, but it most certainly is not a pleasant place to be. Sure, there are tours and cruises to Antarctica, but only a very few brave souls would be willing to spend a week on the frozen continent with only a backpack, a few supplies and some warm clothing – and no one would try it during the winter months. After all, Antarctica is 5.4 million square miles of virtually uninhabited ice that is, at minimum, inhospitable to humans. How bad is it? According to Universeonline.com , Antarctica is considered a desert, with annual precipitation of only 200 mm along the coast and far less inland. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89 °C . There are no permanent human residents, but anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent. Only cold-adapted organisms survive there, including many types of algae, animals (for example mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades), bacteria,...

Patrick McNamara straddles the line between science and religion. He's a professor of neurology at Boston University as well as editor of a series of books about Where God and Science Meet. He asks: But surely it is POSSIBLE that religion MIGHT yield some sort of worthwhile knowledge for humankind. After all would not Coyne agree that music yields a form of knowledge for humankind or that poetry does? What about novels? Surely science is not the only reliable way to knowledge that there is? 1 The question was directed at Jerry Coyne, self-described stableboy to the Four Horsemen of new atheism 2 and Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. Coyne was having none of it:  ...music, literature and poetry don’t produce any truths about the universe that don’t require independent verification by empirical and rational investigation: that is, through science (broadly interpreted).  These fine arts don’t convey to us anything...

    Originally posted Nov 20,2015 Bradley Bowen of Secular Outpost, argues William Lane Craig can't prove that Jesus died on the cross. His ultimate goal is to negate Craig's proofs of the resurrection, he does that by arguing that there is no proof that Jesus died on the cross. No death = no resurrection.  My point here is to argue that Jesus' death on the cross is well warranted for belief. That is the only point with which I will concern myself. Moreover, I will not defend Craig but come at it from my own perspective. Bowen points out that Craig assumes that scholarly acceptance (of Jesus' death) proves the evidence for it is strong. He then argues that this is not proof that the evidence is strong, he then argues that Funk and Johnson doubt it. He uses them to leverage the idea that there are a lot more doubters of that point than Craig knows.  [1]  I doubt that that Craig doesn't know that, he studied with Ernst Kasemann who was a student of R...