Young earth creationists believe that the earth, humankind, and the universe are approximately six-thousand years old. Scientifically, this is a fringe view, not taken seriously by anyone outside religious circles. However, the majority of Christians in the United States are young earthers. Today, we discuss one particular problem for young earth cosmologies: the distant starlight problem. We can see stars that are millions and millions of light years away. If it’s true that the universe is only a few thousand years old, then why can we see stars more than a few thousand light years away? 40% of Americans Believe in Creationism [Gallup] William Lane Craig on young earth creationism [YouTube] Ken Ham on young earth creationism [YouTube] Light-In-Transit and Anisotropic Synchrony Convention – Jason Lisle [AiG] Jason Lisle – The Speed of Light and the ASC [YouTube] The One-Way Speed of Light [YouTube] Conventionality of Simultaneity [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy] Starlight and Time – Russell Humphreys [GoogleBooks] William Lane Craig on the Kalam & Theories of Time [YouTube] Kalam & the A Theory – Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (pgs. 183-184) [PDF] PBS – How we know the universe is ancient [YouTube] PBS – How we know the earth is ancient [YouTube] The Age of the Universe – Sixty Symbols [YouTube] / / /  Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here Rate the show on iTunes here Support on Patreon here Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here Additional music by ichika Nito and was used with permission. Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com Contact me at emersongreen@protonmail.com or on Facebook Follow me on Twitter @waldenpod

Abiogenesis is the process by which life arises from non-living matter. Though life’s origin is an open question, abiogenesis research is a thriving interdisciplinary enterprise. In spite of this, many apologists have argued that it’s unlikely we will ever have a scientific explanation of abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is so improbable on naturalism, they say, that we should be open to supernatural explanations. I argue that abiogenesis is not improbable on naturalism, and also attempt to unravel the numerous errors creationists make when discussing the origins of life. Astrobiologist Stuart Bartlett on What “Life” Means [Mindscape Podcast] Astrobiology at NASA – Defining and Detecting Life [NASA] Darwin’s Warm Little Pond Revisited: From Molecules to the Origin of Life – Hartmut Follmann & Carol Brownson [PubMed] Michael Russell on Alkaline Hydrothermal Vents [JPL] Clay may have been birthplace of life on Earth [ScienceDaily] Michael Russell on Emergent Structures in Nature [YouTube] Meteorites Reveal Another Way to Make Life’s Components [NASA] The Origins of Life [GreatCourses] The Elemental Ingredients of Life are Common [wiki] Jackson Wheat – A Few Ideas in Abiogenesis Research [YouTube] The Replicators (Chp. 2 of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins) [text] Why Abiogenesis is Impossible – Creation Research Society Quarterly [PDF] Intelligent Design, Abiogenesis, and Learning from History: A Reply to Stephen Meyer – Dennis R. Venema [PDF] Peanut Butter – The Atheist’s Worst Nightmare [YouTube] Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com Contact me at emersongreen@protonmail.com or on Facebook Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here Rate the show on iTunes here Support on Patreon here @waldenpod “We left the last hint of polar land behind us, and thanked heaven that we were clear of a haunted, accursed realm where life and death, space and time, have made black and blasphemous alliances in the unknown epochs since matter first writhed and swam on the planet’s scarce-cooled crust.” — H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness

We complete our trilogy on igtheism and discuss epistemic questions about god’s attributes, the historical development of god’s nature, the experience of god, god’s relationship with logical truths, absence of evidence, and address the inevitable retreat into transcendence. Follow me on Twitter @waldenpod Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here Rate the show on iTunes here Support on Patreon here Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com Contact me at emersongreen@protonmail.com or on Facebook Music by Whalers and ichika Nito and was used with permission. . . .  Unintelligible God – Reasonable Doubts [Podchaser] Bart Ehrman on the Origins of the Trinity [YouTube] Ozymandias Ramses II on Logical Truth and Omnipotence [YouTube] Logical Truth and Omnipotence [Reasonable Faith] YouTube Playlist on Igtheism [YouTube] Atheism: A Philosophical Justification – Michael Martin [Amazon]

We define our terms, address Graham Oppy’s claim that igtheism is self-defeating, discuss logical positivism and its relationship with igtheism, and present an igtheist divine hiddenness argument. Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here Rate the show on iTunes here Support on Patreon here Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com Contact me at emersongreen@protonmail.com or on Facebook Follow me on Twitter @waldenpod Music by ichika Nito and was used with permission. . . .  Ozymandias Ramses II on Theological Noncognitivism – Steve McRae Show [YouTube] Unintelligible God – Reasonable Doubts [Podchaser] Rabbi Sherwin Wine coins the term ‘ignostic’ [New York Times] Atheism: A Philosophical Justification – Michael Martin [Amazon] Response to Matt Dillahunty’s Criticism of Igtheism [YouTube] TMM on Igtheism [YouTube] YouTube Playlist on Igtheism [YouTube] Atheism: The Case Against God – George Smith [Google Books] A Disproof of God’s Existence – Colin McGinn [Skeptic] / A Note on Terminology / I use my terminology in a consistent way throughout. As I mentioned, there is no widely recognized standard usage, so it’s important for one to define at the start words like igtheist, incoherent, meaningless, etc. I’m using the terms igtheist, ignostic, and theological noncognitivist as interchangeable, since many already treat them as interchangeable, for better or worse. Trying to establish one as strictly referring to incoherence and another as strictly referring to meaninglessness seems like a hopeless struggle to me, but I apologize for any confusion that resulted from the use of ‘theological noncognitivist’. I only insist on distinguishing two branches of thought that are too often conflated: the related but distinct views that god’s attributes are meaningless and god’s attributes are incoherent. Respectively, one means god talk is without content and the other means god’s attributes don’t cohere, which assumes some content. I’m primarily interested in the latter.  

Can we make any sense of the idea of god? God is supposed to be an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, timeless, spaceless, immutable, disembodied conscious mind. We begin our series on igtheism by discussing several problems with these divine attributes. Is god unintelligible? Is this episode unintelligible? You’ll have to be the judge. Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here Rate the show on iTunes here Support on Patreon here Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com Contact me at emersongreen@protonmail.com or on Facebook Follow me on Twitter @waldenpod Music by ichika Nito and was used with permission. / Resources on Igtheism / Atheism: A Philosophical Justification – Michael Martin [Amazon] Ozymandias Ramses II on Theological Noncognitivism – Steve McRae Show [YouTube] Response to Matt Dillahunty’s Criticism of Igtheism [YouTube] TMM on Igtheism [YouTube] YouTube Playlist on Igtheism [YouTube] Atheism: The Case Against God – George Smith [Google Books] A Disproof of God’s Existence – Colin McGinn [Skeptic]

Why did the Romans kill Jesus? When I was a Christian, I was taught that the Jews were primarily responsible for the death of Jesus. The Romans may have carried it out, but it was ultimately motivated by Jesus’s conflict with Jewish authorities over his transgressions of Jewish law (calling himself god, blasphemy, etc.). Crucifixion, however, was a Roman punishment carried out by the Roman government for violating Roman laws — not a Jewish punishment carried out by Jewish authorities for violating Jewish laws. If Jesus was crucified, it was because he ran afoul of the Romans, not the Jews. So why did the Roman authorities want to execute Jesus? We also discuss the historical Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, human sacrifice, and the bad faith of William Lane Craig. This week I’ll also be appearing on Embrace the Void with Aaron Rabinowitz and The Right to Reason with Robert Stanley. Past Easter episodes: CA48 William Lane Craig’s Four Facts about the Resurrection CA26 The Spread of Christianity CA25 “Who would die for a lie?” CA24 The Resurrection of Jesus Is there historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus? (This is where Craig repeatedly lies about Joseph of Arimathea) [Reasonable Faith] Why Was Jesus Killed? [Bart Ehrman Blog] Anti-Judaism in the Gospels [Ehrman Blog] Jesus Smuggling – Rationality Rules [YouTube] Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here Rate the show on iTunes here Support on Patreon here or if you prefer to give a one-time donation, you can do so with Venmo (@emersongreenpodcast) Music by Whalers (theme) and ichika Nito (transitions) and was used with permission. Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com Contact me at emersongreen@protonmail.com or on Facebook Follow me on Twitter @waldenpod

I’m joined by Aaron Rabinowitz of Embrace the Void and Philosophers in Space to discuss moral luck, moral judgement, and whether it’s ever justified to hate a person. Our first discussion on The Right to Reason Podcast: https://therighttoreason.podbean.com/e/panpsychism-debate/ Thomas Nagel – Moral Luck [PDF] Galen Strawson – Things That Bother Me [Amazon] Moral Luck [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy] You can listen to Aaron on Embrace the Void here and Philosophers in Space here Follow Aaron on Twitter @ETVpod and Emerson @waldenpod Free Will – Counter Apologetics (2017) [YouTube] “Tumors all the way down” [Very Bad Wizards] Listen to ichika Nito here Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here Rate the show on iTunes here Support on Patreon here Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here Contact me at emersongreen@protonmail.com or on Facebook

We discuss Occam’s Razor and simplicity, the principle of sufficient reason, and brute facts. Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR): The principle that everything must have an explanation, reason, cause, or ground. Brute fact: Something with no further explanation. *Edit* I used “brute fact” to simply mean “explanatory termination” in this episode. A brute fact, however, even if it’s the place where our explanations ultimately come to an end, may not be true in all possible worlds. If it was true in all possible worlds, we wouldn’t call it a brute fact; we would call it a metaphysical necessity. In other words, if x is brute, x may not have been. / Leibniz’s Contingency Argument / Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence (either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause). If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God (a necessary being). The universe exists. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God. I reject the principle of sufficient reason (the first premise) because I think there must be at least one brute fact, and because the PSR is arguably self-refuting. I also don’t think the universe needs an explanation for its existence, assuming we’re defining universe in the broadest possible sense. I need to add that caveat because what has previously been called “the universe” may in fact only be a part of everything that exists. In the same way that scientists prematurely named certain particles “atoms,” only to find out later they were not in fact atoms, we may have prematurely named a part of the universe, “the universe.” Apologists will sometimes burn a lot of fuel arguing that “the universe” has an explanation, when they’re not really talking about everything that exists, ever has existed and ever will exist. If this all-encompassing whole is not “an arbitrary act of the mind,” then it could be a brute fact. And to be fair, if god existed, god could be a brute fact. But on grounds of simplicity alone, without even touching all the problems with the notion of god, nature or some aspect of nature is a better candidate than god as the place where our explanations ultimately come to an end. William Lane Craig on Leibniz’s Contingency Argument [Reasonable Faith] Leibnizian Contingency Argument – InspiringPhilosophy [YouTube] Contingency Argument [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy] Principle of Sufficient Reason [SEP] . . .  New music used with permission from ichika Nito ichika Nito’s YouTube channel Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here Rate the show on iTunes here Support on Patreon here Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com Contact me at emersongreen@protonmail.com or on Facebook

In 1927, Bertrand Russell delivered a now-famous address entitled ‘Why I Am Not A Christian’. We examine Russell’s contribution to one of the most important questions you can ask yourself: should I be a Christian? Today we discuss the argument from design, the fine-tuning argument, the problem of evil, and the Euthyphro dilemma. “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. . . . This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.” Bertrand Russell – Why I Am Not A Christian [text] . . . Listen to our sister show, Walden Pod here Rate the show on iTunes here Support on Patreon here or if you prefer to give a one-time donation, you can do so with Venmo (@emersongreenpodcast) Subscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube here Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com Contact me at emersongreen@protonmail.com or on Facebook

In 1927, Bertrand Russell delivered a now-famous address entitled ‘Why I Am Not A Christian’. We examine Russell’s contribution to one of the most important questions you can ask yourself: should I be a Christian? Today we discuss who counts as a Christian, the first cause argument (as well as a couple other arguments in the same family), and the natural law argument. “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. . . . This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.” Bertrand Russell – Why I Am Not A Christian [text] Galen Strawson and Robert Wright [YouTube]