In this blast from the past, J. Warner examines the presupposition of naturalism as it relates to the reasonableness of Christianity. Are theists the only people who believe in miraculous events? Do Biblical miracles (like the Virgin Conception) make the Christian worldview unreasonable? Subscribe to the Cold-Case Christianity Weekly Podcast …
Read More »Does the “Unreasonable” Nature of the Virgin Conception Invalidate the Story of Jesus?
For some, the miraculous claim of the virgin conception of Jesus disqualifies the Gospel accounts as reliable history. The famous writer, atheist and debater, Christopher Hitchens regularly referred to the virgin conception as a clear example of the unreasonable nature of the Gospels. Hitchens would occasionally attempt to demonstrate the …
Read More »Why Almost Everyone Believes in the Miraculous
As an atheist, I considered myself a committed philosophical naturalist, and I rejected supernatural explanations related to scientific or historical inquiry. If I encountered an ancient account describing a supernatural event, I immediately rejected it as “history” and assigned it to the category of “mythology.” True history, after all, cannot …
Read More »What About All Those Evil Christians? (Podcast)
In this blast from the past, J. Warner examines the challenge offered by skeptics who claim that occasional evil behavior on the part of Christians invalidates Christianity. If Christianity is true and virtuous, how can someone like Adolph Hitler call himself a “Christian”? How can there be so many radical …
Read More »Three M’s That Naturalism Can’t Provide
Everyone has a worldview; all of us experience and interpret the world through a collection of beliefs that guide our understanding. As an atheist, I accounted for my experiences through the lens of naturalism. I believed everything I experienced and observed could be explained in terms of natural causes and …
Read More »Are Theists the Only People Who Have the “Burden of Proof”?
As an atheist, I rarely found it necessary to defend my position when talking with friends who believed in the existence of God. After all, my Christian friends were the ones who were making a claim about an invisible Being; certainly the burden of proof belonged to them rather than …
Read More »Rapid Response: “We Don’t Need God to Explain the Origin of Life”
In our Rapid Response series, we tackle common concerns about (and objections to) the Christian worldview by providing short, conversational responses. These posts are designed to model what our answers might look like in a one-on-one setting, while talking to a friend or family member. Imagine if someone said, “Christians …
Read More »Are Atheists Right? Is “Free Will” An Unnecessary, Unimportant Illusion?
In my new book, God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for A Divinely Created Universe, I describe eight pieces of evidence “in the room” of the natural universe and ask a simple question: Can this evidence be explained by staying “inside the room” or is a better …
Read More »Natural Explanations and A Supernatural God
I get lots of email from skeptics. Much of this email is related to miracles. People want to know why Christians are so quick to attribute an event (or healing) to the miraculous intervention of a supernatural God, especially when it appears that a natural force may be offered as …
Read More »Can the Gospels Be Defended As Eyewitness Accounts?
I’m sometimes surprised skeptics resist the claim (at least) that the gospels are written as eyewitness accounts. We can argue about whether or not the gospels are pure fiction, or whether or not they are accurate. But the idea that the gospels can be read as eyewitness accounts is rather …
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