Unlike too many posts that I’ve seen in the past couple of years, there’s actually a good article on the idea of free will over at the Richard Dawkins Foundation site right now. Zeuglodon does a pretty good job of hashing out the various aspects of it, though
Category: Reference
What’s super about it?
While I’ve touched on this subject briefly before, I think it stands a better examination. The process of writing some of these posts has led to the contemplation of some of our cultural assumptions, and what’s become an interesting lesson from this is how useful it might be to contemplate words and ideas that we’ve taken for granted in this case, it’s the
Nothing lives forever
This is actually a combination of two post ideas I had, because I realized that the perspective discussed in one had direct bearing on the other. And then, while this was in draft form, another related item came up. Bear with me as we wend through it all.
Every once in a while I hear something about a culture dying out, or a language on the verge of disappearing because only three people speak it,
But how? Part seven: Filling the hole
Walkabout podcast – But how? Part 7
I’m going to make a slight departure from the format of the previous ‘But How?‘ posts. So far, all of them dealt with how different concepts worked just fine without religion as an explanation, but this one will
Moral: you keep using that word…
While I can’t say anyone has ever had the temerity to attempt to express this to my face (I’m not a little or meek-looking guy,) there is a very prominent tendency to automatically equate “atheist” with “immoral,” one of the little triumphs of religious influence – in fact, it may come second only to “faith is a virtue” in the realm of common
Why would they lie?
There’s a common argument that crops up in discussions of UFO sightings, always from UFO proponents (which, for my purposes here, denotes those who feel that the large number of reports are indicative of something significant – there isn’t a consensus on exactly what.) It can also crop up in regards to paranormal and even religious experiences. Made in regards to eyewitness accounts
Followup: The artful dodger
In the previous post, I took Philosopher of Science Elliott Sober to task for a relatively simple question that he’s been flogging at the expense of huge amounts of oxygen and electrons – and at the same time, ripped philosophy in general. I’ll be honest and say that I would really like someone
Final answers aren’t
Over at EvolutionBlog and Why Evolution Is True, Drs. Rosenhouse and Coyne have taken down the same philosophical question posed by Dr. Elliot Sober, to wit: Can science establish that genetic mutations are not caused by god?
It is questions like this that have guided my abiding dislike of philosophy,
Attorney for god
Over at Why Evolution Is True, Jerry Coyne featured a comment from a reader giving very precise criteria for his/her own conversion to believing evolution. Provided with several examples, however, said reader suddenly became intently interested in the fine print and actual wording of both their own statement and those of the responses. Why am I not surprised?
I guess it’s because I’ve
Personal god
Walkabout podcast – Personal god
I am, if nothing else, a fan of perspective. One of the greatest benefits of critical thinking is that it can often encourage people to take stock of a situation, compare it against other experiences, and most especially, to see where a common attitude can lead us to fall for unwarranted assumptions or misleading values. So I’m slightly irked in that