When I was in college this book was a thing. It was checked out of the library perpetually, I just had to buy it.
I bought two more copies for the atheists in my life, without questioning anything the man was saying. Intellectual, laziness. I'd ask your step mom to prove she even read it. Then sit her down and give her a nice long book review with fact checks. She's askin for it.

Good luck MA, I didn't have nearly the patience to make it through that book as I considered my sanity far more important at the time.

(September 27, 2014 at 2:59 pm)Crossless1 Wrote:

(September 26, 2014 at 5:49 pm)Lemonvariable72 Wrote: Just remember this dude tried to debate Christopher hitchens. And failed.

Yeah, Hitchens destroyed him. What I remember most about Turek was how angry he seemed throughout the debate, like he couldn't believe the insolence of someone who didn't just roll over and accept his sophistry and club-footed Bible thumping.

Oh, I definitely want to see that. At least one of the authors is a first-class ass; it's probably Turek's voice that's coming through.

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(September 27, 2014 at 6:34 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Good luck MA, I didn't have nearly the patience to make it through that book as I considered my sanity far more important at the time.

I'm normally a fast reader, but I keep having to put it down and do something else to ease my brain, so I'm only about 50 pages in. Dudes act like subjectivism (there ARE no absolutes!) is totally pervasive in our society and spend way to much time on something few people actually hold to be the case. I guess it's part of their atheist strawman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoTt0-IA...tAAUjC7rkZ

If your family insists that you read that book, tell them to watch this video series.

Next time my step-mom wants me to read something, I'll ask her to read the 50 Great Myths about Atheism first. She owes me one!

(September 26, 2014 at 4:00 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: I agreed to let my step-mother order this book by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler for me, and I promised to read it. It has arrived.

It's a Christian apologetics book, and it starts out painful in its smugness, strawmanning, and well-poisoning; and promises to get worse. I suppose it will be educational on the topics of slick debating tactics and rehashed arguments, but I may long for a clean death before I finish reading it...or at least need a new desk after I wear mine out banging my head against it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Turek

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Geisler

They do not know you very well. At least, on this topic.
I'm curious what action they've taken to understand your position in turn.

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(September 29, 2014 at 10:36 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: Next time my step-mom wants me to read something, I'll ask her to read the 50 Great Myths about Atheism first. She owes me one!

Lol. Missed that, sorry.
Have you got any ideas yet?

Ah now I've got to go read this for myself, hope my local library still has a copy of it. I love chick tracts, and from what I saw here, this one must be a gem.

Turek, for those interested, was the one making the rounds in atheist circles a while back for arguing that atheism can't just be a lack of belief in god, because that definition of atheism doesn't prove that there's no god by itself.

Just in case anyone was wondering about the level of argumentation that guy is at.

(September 29, 2014 at 10:54 am)Esquilax Wrote: Turek, for those interested, was the one making the rounds in atheist circles a while back for arguing that atheism can't just be a lack of belief in god, because that definition of atheism doesn't prove that there's no god by itself.

Just in case anyone was wondering about the level of argumentation that guy is at.

This is exactly why it's hard for me to read more than a few pages at a time. Bad arguments make me cringe inside. The whole book is the wrong tack to take with this atheist: seeing a bunch of weak arguments and no strong ones was a major factor in tipping me over to atheism in the first place: I had a semester where I took Intro to Religion taught by an apologist and Logic 201 on the same days; so I would hear an argument for God first thing in the morning; and an explanation of why it's a bad argument next thing. I had been leaning toward skepticism in general for years; but held back from applying it to religious claims, however seeing the flaws in those claims exposed so clearly sealed the deal.

We're not allowed to not have some burden of proof, because then how can they win? They know there's no concrete evidence, and "You just have to have faith" isn't going to work.