Reasonable Faith Baltimore

Spiritual Inspiration

Deceptive Professors like this one don’t help, and you have no idea.

On the back of this book cover.

“For thousands of years, the faithful have honed proselytizing strategies and talked people into believing the truth of one holy book or another. Indeed, the faithful often view converting others as an obligation of their faith — and are trained from an early age to spread their unique brand of religion. The result is a world broken in large part by unquestioned faith. As an urgently needed counter to this tried-and-true tradition of religious evangelism, A Manual for Creating Atheists offers the first-ever guide not for talking people into faith--but for talking them out of it. Peter Boghossian draws on the tools he has developed and used for more than twenty years as a philosopher and educator to teach how to engage the faithful in conversations that will help them value reason and rationality, cast doubt on their religious beliefs, mistrust their faith, abandon superstition and irrationality, and ultimately embrace reason.”

Oh my, what happens after hearing this? Are you prepared for this guy? How good is He?

He was very good at persuading students to forget their faith. After years of working in this area, it became too easy for him, so he decided to try another field—the Social Sciences. For the online publisher Cogent Social Sciences, he submitted an article titled “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct.” It gets even more ridiculous: the author argues that manspreading is partially responsible for global warming.

Everything was fine for this respected professor at Portland State University while he was criticizing religion, but things changed when he revealed that the article was actually a hoax. Not smart. His popularity dropped like a lead balloon. He was no longer welcome at the university or by its students.

He uses tools he develpoted over twenty years

To make the religious students embarrassed, belittled by using logical fallacies. Yes, it is a hoax, but he doesn’t let that cat out of the bag.

But There is No Evidence of God's Existence

Oh my. We have a problem with our college Christians

After falling to a hoax, do you feel like attending church?

B: I don’t think so. A: Oh, you have something else planned?

B: No, not really.

A: Why?

B: I don’t see any reason to go.

A: Yeah, but you’ve been going to church there for twenty years.

B: Yeah, I know, but look at it. I mean, really, there are hypocrites there. I don’t see any difference between churchgoers and those who don’t go. Do you see any difference?

A: Well, uh. We’ve had a lot of good times there, and you have friends there.

B: You know they’re so full of rules; I don’t want to hear them anymore. It just keeps me from enjoying life, well, you know. Do you have a good time in church? Besides, why do you believe in God? I mean, there is just no proof- I mean, none. I bet you don’t know who made God.

A: I still think it is a good thing.

B Seriously, man, look at all the evil in the world. Think about all the hatred and evil in the history of the church. Besides, there is just no proof. None. Can you give me proof? It’s the same as believing in the Easter Bunny. Don’t you agree? Seriously, at least with the Easter bunny, we got candy. But God.

A: There’s evil everywhere. You can’t blame God.

B: We don’t need God. We’re just pieces of meat with a brain. When we die, we die, so I want to have a good time while I’m still here. Besides, what has God ever done? Indeed, we don’t need God for the world.

A: How do you think you got here? Look around. How do you think this happened?

B: Things pop into existence. There’s a book called “Universe From Nothing” that you should read. You know, who needs Jesus when a star died for you? Hey, I’m happy for you, but I don’t want anyone to know. I mean, leave me alone. Besides, life probably originated from aliens.

A: Do you really believe that?

B: Of course I do. The famous scientist Richard Dawkins believes this.

The above is an imaginary conversation, but at the same time a collection of statements I’ve heard on both social media and in honest conversations. Conversations like this may put doubt in your own mind, and you don’t know how true or false the statements are.

The purpose of this site is to give you the basics of deductive reasoning, spot logical fallacies by others, give factual information, and prepare you to respond in uncomfortable conversations to understand evidence for God, and to recognize logical fallacies.

What I’m describing is a field of theology called apologetics, but it is not apologizing. It comes from the Greek word apologia, which means a verbal defense, like in a court of law. We learn about the truth claims of Christianity and how to respond to skeptics and agnostics in a logical, reasonable way.

In 1 Peter 3:15 states: “always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” No, you don’t have to be afraid; it simply means you answer respectfully.

Another professor who is truly gifted at manipulation is Richard Dawkins. He’s a well-known atheist who has made a very comfortable living ridiculing religion—especially Christianity. His latest book, Outgrowing God, is aimed at a younger audience and suggests, ever so insultingly, that they are now “grown up” enough to walk away from superstitions and myths. He confidently proclaims that there is no evidence for God. Professors, of course, base their lives purely on logic and science… right? Not exactly.

I will give Dawkins credit for one thing: when scientific answers fail him, his imagination steps in like a superhero. Scientists now admit that forming a single-celled organism by chance in 13 billion years is, well, unreasonable. So when mud, crystals, lightning, gases, and all the usual suspects can’t do the job, who swoops in to save the day? Space aliens! Yes—extraterrestrials. According to Dawkins, the distinguished professor turned “Extraterrestrial Detective” (PET Detective), alien engineers are apparently a respectable scientific explanation.

Sure, one might reasonably assume he has mountains of research, advanced equations, and decades of data to support this extraterrestrial hypothesis. After all, he’s a brilliant scientist working at a prestigious university.  Not exactly.

Our PET Detective confidently claims that ETs seeded life on Earth—conveniently the same ETs who live so far away we can’t see them, can’t detect them, and, fortunately, don’t need to worry about them showing up because they definitely can’t survive the trip. But don’t think too hard about where these super-advanced aliens came from. That’s easy: evolution. The magic word. Evolution did it. Case closed.

Now, I hate to be a “science denier,” but if the universe allegedly hasn’t been around long enough for even a single cell to form naturally, how did ET get such an impressive head start? Again—no problem! Evolution did it faster for them. Somehow, these aliens navigated a slow, blind, unplanned, disorganized process with miraculous speed and then became so intelligent that they turned around and started life on our planet. Not exactly.

Everyone has blind spots ( a cognitive bias), but some people’s blind spots are practically black holes. Bias, of course, is being partial or unfair in one’s judgment. In Dawkins’s case, the blind-spot bias is severe. And he admits as much. In a conversation with philosopher Peter Boghossian, the PET Detective exposes just how deep the blindness goes.

Boghossian: “What would it take for you to believe in God?”

 Dawkins: He explains that even if he heard a booming divine voice or witnessed a Second Coming-style event, the most probable explanation would be a hallucination—or a magic trick by David Copperfield. He claims the supernatural explanation is “incoherent” and suggests that a “non-supernatural Second Coming” could just be… aliens.

 Boghossian: “So what would persuade you?”

 Dawkins: “Well, I’m starting to think nothing would.”

So the self-proclaimed champion of evidence admits that no amount of evidence would ever convince him. A minor problem for a scientist who claims to “follow the evidence wherever it leads.”

Although Dawkins insists there is no evidence for God, there is far more evidence for God’s existence than for Dawkins’s brilliant alien engineers. Arguments like the Kalam, Leibniz, and Teleological arguments have followed logical rules and been debated for centuries. There’s also historical evidence for the resurrection. Strangely, Dawkins offers no equally rigorous arguments for extraterrestrial masterminds.

But hey—science, righ

Why not say who? That is not begging the question.

How well does our “PET Detective” actually understand logic and logical fallacies? In the video, he accuses Ben Stein of “begging the question.”(That is a type of logical fallacy.) But is that accusation accurate? No, it isn’t. Stein merely asked a question, and asking a question is not the same as committing the fallacy of begging the question.

“Begging the question” is also called a circular argument in which the conclusion is assumed in one of the premises. The professor seems confident in his understanding of the term, but he is entirely mistaken. A simple example of begging the question would be:

We will discuss logic at another part of this site, but for now, a deductive argument has pieces of information called premises and a conclusion.

Premise 1: God does not exist.

Premis 2: I’ve looked for God and don’t see him.

Conclusion: God does not exist.

The reason this is a fallacy (something that sounds logical) is that the conclusion is also in the premises. Elsewhere on this site, we look at logic and logical fallacies. I give two pieces of information: premises 1 and 2.

Another problem arises with the claim about aliens and the origin of life: it leads to an infinite regress ( logical fallacy). Richard Dawkins proposes that life began on Earth within a span of a few billion years—a scenario he suggests is unlikely without help. Enter the hypothetical aliens. But this explanation raises a new problem: did those aliens have to go through a slow evolutionary process? If intelligent life can emerge only through a slow evolutionary process, then the aliens themselves would also have to evolve slowly, who in turn would require a slow evolutionary process, and so on. This results in an infinite regress. This is a series of events with no beginning.

Since PET is well known and a professor at a well-known university, it seems reasonable to believe him, given his position of authority. When we follow his evidence and logic, we surprisingly find he has none.

Another fallacy is an appeal to ignorance (logical fallacy). Can I or anyone else prove aliens wrong? No, so he must be right.

Biases and logical fallacies can distort anyone’s reasoning. If we cannot recognize them, we leave ourselves open to deception. The purpose of this website is to teach readers how to identify biases and spot fallacious arguments. For a clearer understanding of these fallacies, consult the brief and accessible explanation provided on this site’s logic and reasoning page.

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