Reading Time: 2 minutes The Fall is a thoroughly problematic theological mechanism at the best of times. But if you combine it with other terrible concepts and events, it looks even more incoherent. Most understandings of God entail an OmniGod conception: God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving. All-knowing or omniscience also includes divine foreknowledge—knowledge of all future events and […]
OmniGod
Posted inPhilosophy
Can you even calculate a best possible world?
Reading Time: 5 minutes One of the arguments in my most recent book 30 Arguments Against the Existence of “God” concerns OmniGod creating this world, and that this world must be the best of all possible worlds. This is because OmniGod is constrained by his characteristic of being all-loving. In being omnibenevolent, God’s actions must always conform to this […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Should Christianity lead to belief in the multiverse?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Cosmological theories are often at odds with traditional Christian or theistic views. Although the Catholic Church has accepted the Big Bang theory for the beginning of the universe, this is not a universal Christian belief, and further nuanced theorizing pertaining to our cosmology is often met with more resistance. But one idea could show that […]
Posted inPhilosophy
The problem of dysteleology for God belief
Reading Time: 4 minutes In the philosophy of religion, we often hear teleological arguments from theists to propose the probable existence of God. These are arguments that concern design and purpose. Theists like to look at the universe and see the hallmarks of design all over the place. “The universe is fine-tuned for life,” they say, while ignoring that […]
Posted inReligion
Noah’s flood is a heinous story
Reading Time: 2 minutes There are a number of events that take place in the Bible that Christians don’t really evaluate carefully enough. The Ten Plagues of Egypt constitute one of these stories and another one is Noah’s flood. There are many problems with the story of Noah’s flood that render it completely nonsensical story when put under close […]
Posted inReligion
Theodicies: Intellectual arguments don’t eliminate toothaches
Reading Time: 5 minutes The problem of evil is the biggest thorn in the side of theism and religious belief, being an often emotive argument as to why there is so much suffering in the world if God was all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving. With those OmniGod characteristics, God would know enough to know what to do about suffering, powerful […]
Posted inReligion
How do Christians explain vanishing twin syndrome and ensoulment?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Many theists believe that ensoulment takes place at conception, as the soul is either attached to, or emerges from, the physical matter of the fertilized egg. This theological minefield begs for critical analysis, which I’ve discussed as it relates to identical twins, and frozen embryos. In the final installment of my “Ensoulment Trilogy,” I was […]
Posted inBooks
New book announcement: 30 Arguments Against the Existence of ‘God’, Heaven, Hell, Satan, and Divine Design
Reading Time: 5 minutes “God” is arguably a nebulous term and might well mean a different thing to each of the many people who believe in it. In my new book 30 Arguments Against the Existence of “God”, Heaven, Hell, Satan, and Divine Design [UK], I take the commonality we see in many views, the understanding of classical theism, […]
Posted inReligion
The Bible Shows God Is Not Omniscient
Reading Time: 3 minutes I feel like triggering Dave Armstrong and what better way to do this than to get his longjohns in a twist about the Noah’s Flood story. This is from a chapter I am editing in a book I am just finishing (would be ready for proofers to look at later today – I have appealed […]
Posted inReligion
Heaven and Hell as a Hot Mess
Reading Time: < 1 minute Check out the latest interview, this time with Gnostic Informant. We discuss the philosophy of heaven and hell, carrying on the conversation started with another video interview I did with MythVision (also below): And the previous one: Stay in touch! Like A Tippling Philosopher on Facebook: A Tippling Philosopher Please support by sharing or donating, […]