Reason and Research as Opposed to Rhetorical Flourish

[Uber Genius]

Recently on this apologetics forum while helping "Seekers," gain knowledge about philosophy of religion, the best atheist apologists, a few examples of good arguments for atheism, far from being "liked" or receiving "Winner," accolades, I was bombarded with mocking comments, fake definitions, straw man fallacies, question begging arguments. Rhetorical flourish and pseudo-intellectual arguments that would hardly fool a 12th-grader were continually offered instead of raising reasonable objections to theism.

It seems that just as there are prerequisites for most college classes, so to for a cogent discussion on the weightier issues of philosophy of religion. I will let WLC make my case.

World-renowned apologist and Philosophy of Religion Professor, William Lane Craig, makes the case for a philosophical foundation when discussing religion:

"By employing the high standards of reasoning characteristic of analytic philosophy we can powerfully formulate apologetic arguments for both commending and defending the Christian worldview. In recent decades, analytic philosophers of religion have shed new light on the rationality and warrant of religious belief, on arguments for the existence of God, on divine attributes such as necessity, eternity, omnipotence, omniscience, and goodness, on the problem of suffering and evil, on the nature of the soul and immortality, on the problem of miracles, and even on peculiarly Christian doctrines like the Trinity, incarnation, atonement, original sin, revelation, hell, and prayer. The wealth of material which is available to the Christian apologist through the labor of analytic philosophers of religion is breath-taking."

Read more: Apologetics Training - Advice to Christian Apologists | Reasonable Faith

Often when encountering both Theistic (Ken Ham, Ray Comfort, Kent Hovind) and atheistic (Richard Dwakins, Larry Krauss, Peter Boghossian, Peter Akins, Jerry Coyne, etc.) apologists, no philosophical training is apparent in their arguments.

Please comment on your favorite apologists and their concomitant contributions to the body of knowledge with regards to our religious understanding of the world.

 

i have highlighted some non-examples of logical thinking so replies can focus on the examples.

Example:
Theist -William Lane Craig/ Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Kalam)
Atheist - Logic and Theism (one of Sobel's arguments)