Doug Shaver
San Bernardino, Calif.
I started this Web site in early 2001. I wrote this essay at that time to explain why.
The whole story would take a whole book. Here is a synopsis.
You want to argue epistemology? If this guy's name isn't familiar to you, then you're not ready for prime time. Updated July 2, 2009. (PDF file)
Reliablism was an attempt to deal with the Gettier problem. It didn't work. Added July 2, 2009. (PDF file)
Foundationalism is not easily defended. This is my contribution (so far) to the effort. Added July 2, 2009. (PDF file)
Some reflections on the justification of scientific rationalism.
W.K. Clifford, a 19th-century American philosopher, said belief without sufficient evidence is not just foolish but immoral as well. I disagree.
Can we believe our eyes? Not unless God made them, according to Plantinga.
There are a few things we really can't be wrong about, and square circles are one of them.
It's not exactly true that you can't prove anything with an argument from authority.
If you have something to say, then you have something to prove.
Yes, the earth is round, but he didn't prove it. He didn't have to, because his adversaries were not saying it was flat. They said he couldn't sail around it because it was too big -- and they were right.
I wrote this, on the conflict between science and religion, many years before Stephen Jay Gould wrote Rocks of Ages. Reading his book did not change my mind.
Some creationists say the evidence doesn't prove what scientists think it proves. That is debateable. Some creationists say there is no evidence. But there is evidence, and that is not debateable.
A few of my thoughts on some of the commoner objections.
We all do.
This is a spoof I threw together just to have some fun.
The one about the blind men and the elephant. Some people read way too much into it.
Facts speak for themselves? Not really. They're all subject to interpretation. Some apologists think this works in their favor. They should think again.
Almost 20 years ago, Dan Barker challenged Christians to tell us exactly what happened, according to the New Testament's authors, between the time Jesus left the grave until he ascended into heaven. This "Easter Challenge" has never been met.
Would the church have had a problem with statements attributed to Jesus that contradicted their orthodoxy? There is no compelling reason to suppose so.
Maybe there was. My argument here is that it's reasonable to doubt it.
One of today's foremost apologists for evangelical Christianity assumes his conclusion in order to prove it.
Is the evidence just as good for one as for the other? Not quite.
A discussion of objections raised by one of Doherty's detractors.
It's possible that there really aren't any. But apologists can't prove it without presupposing it.
A critique of three common apologetic arguments.
More analysis of some apologists' claims.
Why is unbelief such a horrible thing, anyway? I speculate on a possible answer.
Some Christians think McDowell is very persuasive. And he is, but only if you're already a Christian.
I don't always attack Christians. Sometimes I defend them, like I do here.
Even if there is a heaven, and even if Christianity will get us there, it's reasonable to think there could be another way as well.
I was still brand-new to the Internet when a Christian told me that I just had to read this book. I did, and this is what I thought about it.
I bought this book when it came out to see if Strobel had gotten any new ideas. He hadn't.
Obviously, an atheist isn't going to think so. Here are a few reasons why.
Yes, it's an assumption. That doesn't mean there is no good reason to think it's true.
Here I just clarify some of the terms I use in my essays.
It is wrong ever to suppose that virtue confers wisdom on anyone. A moral giant can be an intellectual pygmy; and many of them are, simply because they suppose that since they are good, they must also be wise.
The wisest men are good because it is wise to be good. This is not widely understood because many evil men have claimed to be wise and fooled many into believing their claim. People who believe them cite them as evidence of the dangers of wisdom. What they are really evidence of is the ease with which some people can pretend to be wise.
Fundamentalism in all its forms, religious or political, liberal or conservative, is based on some idea that virtuous people are more receptive than others to the truth, especially moral truth. It supposes that some transcendent power has in some way revealed all important truths to a few people because of their extraordinary virtue and that all other people, if they themselves are virtuous, will intuitively know that those few people must be believed. It supposes that all people are more or less receptive to the truth according to their moral character, that good people know the truth when they hear it and bad people don't. For fundamentalists of all kinds, the only proper exercise of reason is to confirm what virtuous people have already discerned. Any exercise that disconfirms their insights is necessarily improper.
I believe in no revealed truths, because I believe there is no transcendent entity to do any revealing. We can, and we do, discover truths. We all, so long as we remain mentally competent, spend all our lives doing it, some more successfully than others. But since none of us can do it perfectly, we also discover many falsehoods and think they are truths.
True or false, it is when reason will not confirm our ideas that we most readily suppose that they must have been revealed, since if reason will confirm them, then we need no appeal to revelation. But if reason will not confirm an idea, then there can be only one correct answer to the question "How do we know it?" That answer is: "We do not know it." We may believe it, and if we cannot believe otherwise then we must believe it. But we cannot justifiably claim to know it.