CADRE Comments

I’m in the Cone of Doom for Hurricane Irma here in Central Florida; it’s probably about the 10 th time in my life I’ve been in that range for a hurricane, and this is probably the 40 th time in my life I’ve experienced the dance that goes with one of these. Such are the perils of Florida nativehood and residence. But today I want to mention another associated peril that isn’t life-threatening, although it rates as high on the Saffir-Simpson scale as Irma does. I’m talking about long-winded blowhard fundamentalist and fundamentalist-atheist trolls. Every time we get a hurricane, you see members of this crowd show up in the comments section of news stories. On the fundamentalist side, you’ll get the loonies who say that we’re getting hit with this thing because we approved gay marriage, or because we voted for Donald Trump, or because we let the Seminole Indians open bingo parlors. On the fundy atheist side, you’ll get the crackpot troll who savages each and any expression of ...

My basic argument about supernatural (SN) is that the original Christian  concept is not the same as the modern concept. When the atheists say there is no evidence for the SN It is irrelevant because Christianity goes bay a different concept, Now it; is true that a lot of Christians are going by the newer concept but that doesn't matter because those are not real doctrines of the church and the real concept is still diffused throughout other doctrinal fields, The original concept: God' presence and power in spiritual experience will raise us to a higher level of consciousness and salivate human nature infusing it with  divine unction. That is essentially mystical experience, The modern concept, brought in in the  enlightenment is that reality is divided at the metaphysical into natural and supernatural. Natural is the Godless zone where God may not go and that is normal natural action in ...

I've been off for a bit while I took (and caught up from) a long overdue vacation. My beloved Mrs. H and I ventured into the rurals of South Carolina in the hopes of catching the total solar eclipse on August 21. (Spoiler alert: We did.) Miss it, and wanted to see it? You can try again in 2024, when another one will cross from Texas to Maine. I know we'll be trying again for the sheer spectacle.  A word to the wise: It's not something you plan for on the fly. I made lodging reservations in March. The places we went to were booked solid long before August, even very rural areas outside the totality zone You would have likely had to stay in your car if you didn't plan ahead.   Getting to see the spectacle was an involved dance of factors. I reserved us a lodging just a few miles outside the totality zone, in Walterboro SC. It's a town so small that the fireworks store is abut the most exciting place to visit.  The plan was that if it turned out cloudy, we would ...

The old saying is that it's not polite to discuss religion and politics. However, the problem isn't discussing these issues, it has become discussing these issues politely. Regardless of whether it is religion or politics being discussed, it often degrades into an exchange of insults using the coarsest language that the parties can dredge up to throw at each other. Discussions between Christians and atheists have turned every bit as ugly as the discussions between Republicans and Democrats. Certainly, since I began engaging in Christian apologetics the conversations have certainly become much more contentious and the volume level has risen sharply. In the area of religion, I personally put much of the blame for the negative turn on the New Atheists and their take-no-prisoners approach to attacking religion and religious belief. After all, it is hard to have a calm, lucid conversation with someone when their position (as advocated by people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Har...

rose window Notre Dame, Paris The New atheists constantly mock the SN as though they know what it is. When they discuss it they include anything not naturalistic. The modern conception is that SN is everything from Bigfoot to the resurrection, include  ghosts, UFOs and Psychic Powers. It never occurs to them Christians were using the term before the modern concept of naturalism so it can't just mean everything that's not naturalistic. Jerry Coyne is an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. He is also an apologist for atheism. Coyne says something more interesting than than Dawkins does, however, he says that SN could be studied by science. [1] Although, I'm sure Dawkins probably agrees with his reasoning. If SN could not be so studied it would be unreasonable to fault the notion for not having scientific evidence. Coyne asserts that modern science's tendency to set religion aside as belonging to a different order of reality (magisteria) thus being...