Fans de Waal is a crucial figure in the research into morality, fairness, reciprocal altruism and suchlike within the realm…
From Think Progress: Atheists Score Major Win In Federal Court A federal district court in Oregon has declared Secular Humanism…
As part of my introductory series which has looked at different philosophers and the philosophical questions from the 2009 philpapers survey, I am going to look at qualia, as asked by a friend on facebook.
This video has been doing the rounds. And rightly so. Well worth a watch.
This post will be split into two parts due to its length. This will allow any posters to be able to interact with certain points as we go. Regards, Andreas Schüler.
Can science and religion coexist in harmony ?
A favorite phrase of sophisticated theologians™ is – science tells us how and religion tells us why. But it is not only theologians who claim that there can be no conflict between properly understood science and religion because they deal with different questions. Many scientists, and not only religious ones, support this view as well.
Or a least, so it looks in my hands. I have a chapter in John Loftus’ voluminous anthology which looks…
Last night, an alien came down to Earth and forqwibexed me. I mean, he really did. Who knew!
This short post will be concerned with the idea that moral value systems such as Divine Command Theories or intrinsic value theories such as deonotological theories are problematic.
I am flying back home now from the amazing conference on the Star of Bethlehem at the University of Groningen. It was quite the success of collecting experts and scheduling events, including a trip to the oldest working planetarium in the world. This was also my first academic conference in the area of history and biblical studies, and I was surrounded by scholars in Iranian studies, Jewish astrology, Latin literature, ancient science, and of course New Testament studies. And it looks like I did well among this august group. Heck, after my talk a few whispered to me that it seemed like I already answered all the questions about the subject!
Here are the details for my talk to Brighton Skeptics in the Pub, which is great because I went…
The other day I was getting really frustrated with my manual coordination. I was leaving school on a Sunday after doing some work and was trying to locate a particular key on a keyring. With one hand. Whilst holding three bags with my other and something under my arm. With something also being held in my mouth. I was attempting to swing various keys around the ring, locating which particular one I wanted out of about twenty keys. The keys kept slipping into the wrong place and I was swearing in sheer frustration.
‘Trick Slattery, who has written a really good introductory book & ebook on determinism, has produced this infographic comparing determinism…
For a bit of fun and interest, you can take your political GPS reading here. I cam out marginally less…
This is a great way to spend 10 minutes:
This was a pretty interesting talk, with some lovely moments to lift as quotes. One of my favourites was the…
A superb point about guns and gun control which is not nearly used enough:
It is almost a truism that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. But the fact remains that, given the intent to kill, guns make it far more likely that it will end badly.
John Loftus’ third anthology in the series, Christianity Is Not Great: How Faith Fails, is out now, available in various formats for your delectation. It’s shaping up to be a great contribution to the counter-apologetics movement. Here is the list of chapters, where you will see mine towards the end in Part V:
The Malcontent’s Gambit podcast has recently hosted an interview of author James A. Lindsay who authored God, God, God: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly (a book which I myself edited). The late Vic Stenger kindly wrote the foreword, and James talks much about infinity, God, and Voc Stenger too in this really interesting interview.
………YESTERDAY’S SCORECARD………… Deaths by EBOLA on US Citizens……..0 Deaths by ISIS to US Citizens…………..0 Deaths by Guns to US Citizens…………80…
Check out fellow SINner Russell Blackford’s talk from TAM 2013: Just watching it now, but if it is…
Holidays are coming, holidays are coming…
It’s that time of year, you know, the interminable run-up to Christmas when big corporations vie for your hard-earned cash in an attempt to exploit the seasonal goodwill brought on by the imaginary birth of a godmanspirit.
With the conference season now over and done with, the British Humanist Association has declared it a successful season with…