I am reposting this in response to the terror attacks in France last night, resulting in the deaths of over one hundred people. As ever, the internet is awash with right-wing shouts to “kill all Muslims” and refugees, to the left-wing shouts that it is the Imperial West to blame and not Islam or Muslims. Neither of these positions are correct. It is obviously thoroughly complex, indeed involving international politics. However, to deny the Qu’ran, Muhammad and the Hadith causal responsibility in these atrocities is to deny the self-determination of those very terrorists who claim that they are doing these actions in the name of Islam and their god.
This is a fascinating article which will feed in to a post I will write about my own twins, and the power of genetics over behaviour, with its necessary mitigation of free will. From Science Daily:
Another thing I wanted to add was the idea that the mental, the experiential, supervenes on the physical. This means that the physical in some way defines and is necessary for the mental.
This is becoming more and more evident. Let me exemplify:
How much do you love your mother?
From the British Humanist Association, by email:
We were very disappointed last week by comments made by Baroness Warsi, the Minister for Faith and Communities. She addressed a gathering of students at Churchill College, Cambridge, and stated that the UK’s coalition government was one of the most ‘pro-faith’ in the world.
Come along to the newly created Worthing Skeptics in the Pub this Thursday for whom I will be doing a…
Mike D’s excellent blog The A-Unicornist has some real gems, and if only I had more time I would hang out there more often (I am trying to get a sidebar widget to link to offsite blogs). His latest post concerns the is/ought debate, especially dealing with Sam Harris/Richard Carrier and the great philosopher of science, Massimo Pigliucci.
A new Tippling Philosopher has recently joined our group and come to the last few meetings. I was discussing free will with him in the pub, and he seemed to fail to understand how the Principle of Alternative Possibilities worked, and how the incoherence of free will seems insurmountable. Here is the last email I sent to the group to try to explain.
H/T Cyngus
Here is a post from James A. Lindsay’s blog, reposted here because I have just edited and published his book through Onus Books. it has had really good reviews and we managed to get Victor Stenger to write a foreword for it:
Quote of the Day from Andy Schueler:
Oh, and I also like the “my mom” argument, which I just made up :-D
Dilbert doing philosophy. Good stuff! Particularly the last one!
Post hoc rationalisation is what most of us end up doing when we reason. We have a gut instinct, a potentially irrational or a-rational decision based on the underlying cognitive faculties connected to our whole personhood, physical reactions and gut instincts.
Here is an old post from DC which John Loftus posted, taken from a then ongoing debate with David Marshall about what faith is. It recently came up in a conversation involving labreuer and David himself. Let me know if it still holds:
David
Part of the problem is that you are extracting these issues from their real world application and in a sense making them irrelevant. Let’s apply the faith vs reason to real life instances:
The Philippines chief negotiator, Yeb Sano, opened the UN climate talks with an impassioned plea for urgent action, and announcing a hunger strike in solidarity for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan.
Beautiful:
I am presently reading an absolutely superb book by David Eagleman called Incognito:
The book is a popular foray into psychology and neuroscience and synthesises a host of different studies into things brain. I wanted to just bring up a few fascinating studies which cast doubt upon the idea that we have fully fledged, or even remotely authored, conscious free will. It even talks about chicken sexers, which is nice. Rather than produce notes, I have tried to directly link the claims.
Surely both, that the star appeared and the wise men knew to follow it to find the baby Jesus, was a miracle. Can there be any doubt? So why did it lead them to Jerusalem, the wrong town — and much worse — to Herod, who only became aware of His rival after the wise men inquired about the new born King of the Jews? It was then that Herod resolved to kill Jesus.
I came across this quote in response to someone posting my notes on fine-tuning on the Why Doesn’t God Heal Amputees forum. I like it a lot:
The biggest problem I find with the fine-tuned argument is that it is incompatible with dualism, and therefore Christianity.
John Loftus’ new book features a chapter from yours truly. Here is the description he has in place for the…
In a new study, Dartmouth researchers rule out a controversial theory that the accelerating expansion of the universe is an illusion.
And while we’re on You Tube… BOOM! Oh, and while you’re at it, go to 2 minutes into this: