CONTRA CARM
Essays by Dawson Bethrick
Below you will find links to Dawson's rebuttals to several articles by Matt Slick of CARM, the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry. CARM's own description of itself is as follows (as stated on its front page):
CARM is a 501(c)3 nonprofit Christian apologetics organization whose purpose is to equip Christians with good information on doctrine, various religious groups (Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.), cults, Evolution, New Age, and related subjects.
It is clear from Slick's writings that he has a very low opinion of those who do not share his religious leanings. His articles are packed with pseudo-arguments which are ever-concerned to show that the Christian god exists. Stylistically, they drip with ridicule for anyone who calls himself an atheist, and liken such a person to one who claims omniscience. These and other tired and outworn characterizations of non-believers are rampant throughout the articles found on the CARM website. It is, as François Tremblay puts it, "an interesting web site for atheists who want to read and spot some basic apologetics mistakes."
Slick's Fuss: A Review of CARM's "Is Atheism Viable?" (30kb) - In this essay, Dawson interacts with Matt Slick's essay Is Atheism Viable?, which is a typical Christian attempt to denigrate those who do not buy the bull. Slick even put up a response to Dawson's interaction! (Note that Slick does not include links back to Dawson's article.)
Slick's Folly: A Review of CARM's "I lack belief in a god" (40kb) - This is a comprehensive response, in the form of a dialogue, to Matt Slick's essay "I lack belief in a god", an essay intended to establish the view that atheism is not justified on the grounds of a lack of evidence.
Slick's Foolery: A Review of CARM's "I don't' see any convincing evidence for the existence of God" [sic] (22kb) - Another point-by-point response to Matt Slick, this time to his essay "I don't' see any convincing evidence for the existence of God", which is intended to revise the concept of evidence in order to allow virtually anything to qualify as evidence for the existence of Slick's god.
Slick's Sleight of Hand: A Review of Matt Slick's Rebuttal to My Criticism (238 kb) - A very long, very comprehensive response to Matt Slick's Another response to criticism of "Is Atheism Viable?", an essay which Slick wrote (apparently in haste) in response to Dawson's essay Slick's Fuss (above).
Obliterating Slick's Straw Man (45 kb) - Here is Dawson's response to Slick's Atheism, Evolution, and Purpose, which is a version of the tired, outworn assertion that purpose in life necessarily points to the Christian god.
Slick's Version of TAG (58 kb) - Excellent rebuttal to Matt Slick's aattempt to defend the so-called "transcendental argument for the existence of God," which is showcased in his essay The Christian Worldview, the Atheist Worldview, and Logic. This is the "argument" (more accurately, series of unconnected assertions) which tries to conclude that a specifically non-Christian worldview (and especially a worldview which is not theistic in nature) cannot "account for the laws of logic." The background assumption is, of course, that the Christian worldview, with its assertion of a mighty ruling consciousness, can "account for the laws of logic." In meticulous and exemplary fashion, Dawson shows why this kind of argument can only fail.
Examining CARM's "Entropy Argument" (30 kb) - Here is Dawson's full answer to Mattt Slick's Entropy and Causality used as a proof for God's existence, a variation of the cosmological argument that attempts to construe natural physical concepts into evidence for the supernatural.
Comments to the author of these essays?
E-mail Dawson Bethrick