Exchange with David Brightly

David Brightly: Science, science, science! Why is it such a bugbear? Does science have to be diminished in order to make room for faith? 

VR: Not if you make a distinction, as you and I both do, between science and scientism. The actual doing of science goes on with no problem without scientism, and the founding fathers of modern science, and some of the best practicioners today, are religious believers.

Suppose we take methodological naturalism to be a voluntary constraint on inquiry that rules out explanation and understanding in terms of persons. Science is then that body of understanding that eschews personhood as an explanatory factor. So there can be no science of world war one, say, and hence scientism is ruled out. Metaphysical naturalism becomes the doctrine that there are no persons other than the likes of us. Science then neither requires nor implies metaphysical naturalism, and there is plenty of space within naturalism for lines of inquiry that lie outside science.

VR: The only thing is that scientific enterprises get funded in ways that others do not.  But we have to ask what the scientific community is trying to accomplish. The scientific community can draw the limits of their own inquiry any way they choose. However, if they put something outside the realm of scientific inquiry, and then make heavy weather out of the fact that science hasn’t produced evidence for it, then we have a problem.  It’s no insult to a metal detector that it can’t find a $100 bill you might have left on the beach.

With this understanding of naturalism isn't it just a bit odd to speak of religious faith and 'faith in naturalism' in the same breath, as Lennox does? I would have thought that if someone's faith in Christ were on a par with my faith in naturalism it would amount to such a meagre, milksop kind of thing as to be not worth having. 

VR: But there are people out there with far more zeal and dedication to atheistic naturalism than a lot of Christians I know have with respect to their faith.  Atheism matters to these people, they want others to embrace it, and they are willing to deny access to positions of scientific or philosophical authority to those who disagree with their naturalism.

Surely the essence of much religion and certainly Christianity is the conviction that personhood lies at the very heart of things. Faith in Christ involves a relation with a person with all the emotional and moral implications that has. Atheists just don't feel this way.

I would agree in the sense that a Christian’s faith is a different kind of thing from faith in naturalism. On the other hand, I think it is epistemologically similar. On the other hand there are epistemological similarities. One considers the reasons for and against, and one commits to naturalism, or some religious view. Because a large part of a person’s life is structured around the decision one makes, it is understandable that people will be slow to reconsider their positions once taken. I do not see any less obstinacy of belief on either side of the issue. 

Humanist Manifesto II on sexual conduct

SIXTH: In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitive, denigrating forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit, by law or social sanction, sexual behavior between consenting adults. The many varieties of sexual exploration should not in themselves be considered “evil.” Without countenancing mindless permissiveness or unbridled promiscuity, a civilized society should be a tolerant one. Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their lifestyles as they desire. We wish to cultivate the development of a responsible attitude toward sexuality, in which humans are not exploited as sexual objects, and in which intimacy, sensitivity, respect, and honesty in interpersonal relations are encouraged. Moral education for children and adults is an important way of developing awareness and sexual maturity.

Interestingly enough, Humanist Manifesto III didn't include anything like this. 

Are there limits on scientific inquiry

But here is the problem. People speaking for science, or as Ilion likes to say, Science!, don't accept the idea that science is subjected to a constraint. 

What you get is a shell game. "Why should we be naturalists?" Because there is no scientific evidence for anything other than the physical world. "But what about the bacterial flagellum? Isn't that evidence that there is something outside the natural world?" No, you IDiot, to infer from the bacterial flagellum, or the fine tuning of the universe, to a being beyond nature is to violate the canons of scientific inquiry." It is the science defenders who seem to think that belief in anything beyond the natural is somehow a threat to their enterprise, but in fact such heresy hunting, if effective, would deprive the scientific community of some of its best practicioners, such as Francis Collins and Donald Page. 

Further, for many atheists, commitment to atheism is something really important to them. I know many atheists who have ten times the zeal most Christians have for their belief. For them it isn't heaven or hell, it's progress or regression. 

The scientific community has the right to define the limits of its own inquiry any way it sees fit. To then say that their domain is the complete realm of rational inquiry is to make not a scientific claim, but a philosophical one. And to reject that claim is not to be what they insist one should not be, a science denier.

Vindicating a Bayesian Approach to Confirming Miracles

By John DePoe. Here. 

Is atheism the lack of a belief in God?

Someone should explain this to some atheists.

Dare we ask if naturalism is a philosophy brought to science?

Questions about the status of this naturalistic story do not readily

go away, as the level of public interest shows. So, is naturalism actually

demanded by science? Or is it just conceivable that naturalism is a

philosophy that is brought to science, more than something that is entailed

by science? Could it even be, dare one ask, more like an expression of

faith, akin to religious faith? One might at least be forgiven for thinking that

from the way in which those who dare ask such questions are sometimes

treated. Like religious heretics of a former age they may suffer a form of

martyrdom by the cutting off of their grants.--John Lennox, God's Undertaker. 

Lion Hudson plc, Mar 29, 2011

What would science say in a world in which young earth creationism was true?

Surely there is a possible world in which YEC is true, in which humans develop science. What would scientists in that world say?

There seem to be three possibilities.

1) Science would say the world was created in 6 days approximately 6,000 years ago by a omnipotent supernatural being.

2) Science cannot say how speciation took place.

3) Science must invent an evolutionary theory, even though it is false.

How scientism poisions everything

It is actually the half-truths of scientism that truly poison everything by offering in general and its followers in particular a fatal scientistic concoction of half-poison and half-water as though it were pure water. In other words, in the biblical world-view, the counter-claim is Anti-God Secularistic Scientists are not Great, How Scientism Poisons Everything.

-Dr. Ron Rickards, Eternal Harmony: Volume 1: the Unity of Truth in God

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M7O36QJ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Is the Christian role in the founding of modern science relevant?

Lawrence Krauss says no. In response to Lennox he said: 

Let me even agree with you for the moment and say, “Okay, science owes its origin to Christianity.” Thanks very much. We don’t need you anymore. You did a great job. You got us here. Now get out of the way.”Let me even agree with you for the moment and say, “Okay, science owes its origin to Christianity.” Thanks very much. We don’t need you anymore. You did a great job. You got us here. Now get out of the way.”

The case against Napoleon

SP: That alleged event is not verifiable in a scientific sense or even an historic sense. That event is not repeatable, nor was it recorded by scientific instrumentation, nor do we have such scientific evidence for analogous events that would at least make your assertion scientifically plausible.

VR: Couldn't the same argument be made against, say, the Battle of Waterloo? 

Here. 

I like the Christian Life

The Louvin Brothers' song. Perfect Christian camp song, covered by the Byrds.

My buddies tell me that I should've waited
They say I'm missing a whole world of fun
But I still love them and I sing with pride
I like the Christian life

I won't lose a friend by heeding God's call
For what is a friend who'd want you to fall
Others find pleasure in things I despise
I like the Christian life

My buddies shun me since I turned to Jesus
They say I'm missing a whole world of fun
I live without them and walk in the light
I like the Christian life

I won't lose a friend by heeding God's call
For what is a friend who'd want you to fall
Others find pleasure in things I despise

I like the Christian life
I like the Christian life

The reality of Christmas

We have just passed the Christmas holiday, but this is still of interest. 

By the way, I turn 63 today. 

HT: Bob Prokop. 

Aswedenism

You think that my denial of Sweden is an actual claim of some kind, that it's a belief. But it isn't. It's a non-belief. There's nothing I need to explain–rather, I'm talking about something I lack, namely a belief in Sweden, so I don't need to give any evidence for it.

I don't have to provide evidence for my non-belief in Atlantis, El Dorado, Shangri-La, or the Customer Support Department at American Airlines, and nor need I for my non-belief in Sweden. I'm not making a claim of any kind–in fact, just the opposite: I'm claimingnothing. I'm merely rejecting one your  beliefs, your belief in Sweden. Andy Bannister, The Atheist Who Didn't Exist (Monarch Books, 2015), 31-32.

HT: Steve Hays

Christophobia

Defined here. 

Could that be motivating some people? Naah.

Why allow same sex marriage or mixed race marriage?

Assuming atheism, I see no good argument against miscegenation laws. Jefferson said that we were endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, and if we have no creator, then there are no inalienable rights. A right exists just in case there is a moral fact that requiring those with the biggest guns from exercise power over those lacking the biggest guns. However, if atheism, (or at least materialistic atheism) is true, then there are no such moral facts, and there is no obligation on the people with the biggest guns from disallowing mixed marriages if they so prefer. Thus, if the government under Trump wants to make America great again by making America white again, and part of that operation is to prevent mixed marriages in order to maintain racial purity, there is no moral fact that obligates them not to do so. Similarly if the people with the biggest guns like gay people then they will give them marriage licenses, and if not then not.

On the other hand, if there is a God, then God may have revealed to us the basis of the doctrine of human equality, then that is another matter. The concept of race has no basis in Scripture, and there is no religious reason at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition for treating people of different races differently and preventing intermarriage. The only ethnic identity God seems to care about in the Bible is the lineage of Israel, and the lineage of David, and in Judaism and Christianity that is best defined in terms of a special mission, not a special privilege. There was concern about intermarriage for fear of the Jewish people falling into idolatry, but that is not an issue for miscegenation. 

On the other hand, in that context, we have to ask whether God intends for same-sex couples to marry.

HItler: Christian, atheist or neither

Debated here. 

A question for Peter Singer

I once told an exterminator who came to our house that he was a mass murderer. But if all animals are equal, is that still a joke? 

Is the case for human equality religious?

Some argue that religious arguments should be excluded from public policy debate. But what happens when we do that?

Thomas Jefferson used a religious argument to argue for human rights, he said that those rights were endowed by our creator and that we were created equal. This obviously won't work if there is no God, since we weren't created, and therefore we could not have been created equal. Is it possible that the very principle of human equality itself, which is the basis for marriage equality, is based on a religious argument, and if you reject all religious arguments, you undercut the case for all forms of equality, including marriage equality.

Is it a consequence of atheism that the people with the biggest guns are entitled to determine who has what rights?

It can be replied that even though the concept of human equality had a religious source to begin with, we have discovered that the doctrine of human equality works out best for humans, so even if we discover that we got here by evolution and not creation, we should still respect human equality.  But how persuasive is that for people who have power and don't want to relinquish it?

Marriage, hookups, and shackups

Perhaps we need to clarify what calling something a marriage is. To even have marriage, gay or otherwise, you have to say that this is something they are doing over and above hooking up and shacking up.

Different groups within society can issue the status of marriage, and they will do so based on their own religious convictions. The Southern Baptist Church will use different criteria from the Metropolitan Community Church.

The fact that we have marriage licenses suggests that the government has an interest in identifying and sponsoring relationships that have this status. But what, exactly, is that interest? And should there be such an interest? That is, I think, the proper focus of the gay marriage debate.

The Nothing Fails Like Prayer Argument: a rebuttal

This is a statistical analysis of what I like to call the Nothing Fails Like Prayer argument.

Believer and unbeliever alike might well pause to reflect at this point on where this leaves us. Regarding God anthropomorphically for the moment, it appears that he has been put in a no-win situation. If he acts in answer to experimental prayer, he is denying his nature by becoming the tool of humans; if he fails to act he is judged to be non-existent!

The "woman's body" argument on abortion, and the village in your left arm

I think the slogan, "A woman has the right to do as she pleases with her own body, is flawed.
What if a village of tiny people were housed in your left arm. The village makes your arm itch sometimes. Would you have the right to wipe it out because, after all, it is housed in your body?

Chesterton on pseudo-objectivity

"An open mind is really a mark of foolishness, like an open mouth. Mouths and minds were made to shut; they were made to open only in order to shut. In direct connection with this question of mythology and human belief the point may roughly be put thus: An extraordinary idea has arisen that the best critic of religious institutions is the man who talks coldly about religion. Nobody supposes that the best critic of music is the man who talks coldly about music. Within reasonable bounds, the more excited the musician is about music, the more he is likely to be right about it. Nobody thinks a man a correct judge of poetry because he looks down on poems. But there is an idea that a man is a correct judge of religion because he looks down on religions. Now, folklore and primitive faiths, and all such things are of the nature of music and poetry in this respect — that the actual language and symbols they employ require not only an understanding, they require what the Bible very finely calls an understanding heart. You must be a little moved in your emotions even to understand them at all; you must have a heart in order to make head or tail of them. Consequently, whenever I hear on these occasions that beliefs are being discussed scientifically and calmly, I know that they are being discussed wrong. Even a false religion is too genuine a thing to be discussed calmly." ~G.K. Chesterton: 'IlllustratedLondon News,' 10 October 1908.

Dawkins' argument from simplicity

What Dawkins argues is that a real explanation explains that which is more complex in terms of that which is simpler. Explanations of anything in terms of God necessarily explains things in terms of that which is still more complex, and so such explanations are nonstarters, since they fail to explain the more complex in terms of the less complex.

The logic of this position is that evidence for God is impossible, for if there were evidence of God, it would provide us with an explanation of the more complex in terms of the less complex. But this is impossible by definition. The search for such evidence is doomed at the start.

Are wedding providers who refuse to serve same-sex weddings expected to lie?

They may not be refusing because they are gay. They may be refusing because they have to put speech on their wedding products which state that that which is being celebrated is a marriage, when they firmly believe it is not a marriage. In other words, they are objecting to being asked to lie.

This hinges on a distinction between providing a product, in which case the protected status of gay people can be applied, and providing speech, in which case the right to free speech should outweigh concerns of nondiscrimination.

Argument from the Laws of Logic for God

Here. 

A paper by James Anderson and Greg Welty.

Why do laws of logic exist? They are not local to any particular place or time, yet they apply to all of reality. Why do they exist?

Can the pro-choice candidate be the pro-life vote?

But here the choice is between two candidates, one who supports choice restrictions, but also has supported workplace practices that punish women for remaining pregnant while working and carrying their pregnancies to term. You have another candidate who opposes choice restrictions but has strongly supported efforts that keep women from being punished in the workplace for carrying their pregnancies to term. If you don't want to see abortions taking place, which of these candidates do you vote for? I would argue that, in a case like this, it is actually more pro-life to vote pro-choice. Choice is awfully hard to restrict given the fact that it is underwritten by a Supreme Court decision of almost 44 years standing. You either have to change the Court and get it overturned (which three pro-life presidents tried to do and failed), and even there all you do is throw it back to the states. Are the states going to end up with laws restricting or eliminating abortion? I have serious doubts about that. I think if Roe were overturned it would save two fetuses in the state of Mississippi.  Or, do we work on creating legislation that supports women who want to carry their pregnancies to term but might be pressured by economic fears into aborting? 

I think the latter approach, combined with a strong emphasis on the fact that there the legal possibility of choice does NOT entail moral acceptability, is the best approach to take if you want to see as few abortions as possible. Oh, and you can pray to end abortion.

The case against assisted suicide

Does the legality of assisted suicide lead health insurance companies to push it and use it an excuse to deny payment for end of life care? That has always been my biggest worry about it.
\
Apparently yes. 

Do Christian views discriminate against gay people?

Are the religious views on homosexuality straightforwardly discriminatory? It is not clear to me that they are. Being a same-sex attracted person is no problem for many of them, it is just that, on their view, it is wrong for such persons to pursue intimate relationships. One celibate gay man is a leading biblical studies professor at a conservative Christian college.

Some people, it seems, can't help being attracted, and only attracted to little boys. They shouldn't be discriminated against if they are this way, unless, of course, they pursue intimate relationships in accordance with their orientation. But the pursuit is an action, not a fact about them that cannot be changed.

Does secularism undermine the foundations of same-sex marriage?

 Ironically, I think that while religion provides most of the arguments against gay marriage, it also provides the foundation for the central argument for it. Jefferson says we were endowed BY OUR CREATOR with certain inalienable rights, which means that even if the people with the biggest guns want to deny us those rights, there is an authority above possession of the biggest guns that tells us that rights should not be violated, even if they are violated. However, if we were just spat up by evolution as opposed to created, then the idea that the people with the biggest guns should respect the rights of gay people even if they don't like them goes by the boards. Might does not make right, but might does what it wants to. Secularism undermines the religious arguments for gay marriage, but it also undermines the best argument for it, which is the doctrine of human equality.

The difference between ID and creationism

The difference between ID and creationism isn't so much what they believe (although in ID there is no attempt to underwrite biblical literalism scientifically), but rather concerns what science can show. There is a difference between something being created and being designed. Plato believe that the natural world showed signs of design, but his philosophy made the Demiurge (his designer) only a designer, and not the creator of the basic stuff of the world. The idea is that we have ways of figuring out if things are designed (think about the way we decide whether someone is cheating at cards--- was the arrangement of cards you got from the deck designed or not designed by the dealer), and if we follow those rules, you get a positive result for design in nature. 

Trump and hopes for the right to life

People who had pro-life motives for supporting Trump are putting the hopes for fetal lives in the hands of someone who thinks that pregnancy is "an inconvenience for a person running a business." If woman thinks her boss might say "you're fired" if he finds out she's pregnant, where do  you think she is likely to go?

One easy logical step

One element of New Atheism that strikes me as aggressive is Dawkins' claim that religious believers who present their religious beliefs as true to their children are abusing them. Usually when people make charges of child abuse, they expect law enforcement to stop child abusers from continuing to do so, sometimes by removing the child from the home. Dawkins hasn't suggested that, but that seems an easy logical step. 

What is wrong with being a bigot?

Is opposition to bigotry itself religiously based? If we were not created, we were not created equal, and therefore do not have any 'inalienable" rights except what the people with the biggest guns see fit to give us.

Thus wedding providers who don't serve gay weddings can only be criticized if they are violated their God-given rights. But either there are no God given rights, in which case there is no case for gay marriage, or they were given those rights by God. But, based on the possible sources of revelation we have, is it plausible to say that God granted gay people the right to marry?

Craig's Video on the Kalam Cosmological Argument

Here. 

How do we define evidence?

How do we define evidence? How do we define evidence? I maintain the x is evidence for y just in case x is more likely to exist if y is true than if y is not true. And on that assumption, there is lots of evidence on both sides, and we have to decide which side is sufficient. But others define evidence differently. 

Why I am for legalizing murder in some cases

I am inclined to think that there is there are moral issues that can't be fully dealt with by the law, and abortion is one of those issues. The law can act where were have enough consensus to put violators in jail. But if we admit that something isn't so clearly wrong that we should be putting someone in jail who does it doesn't mean that it's just OK.

People are also dealing with these questions from different world-views, religious and nonreligious, and there are citizens representing many groups, all of whom are good citizens of our country. There are many tools of moral persuasion that pro-lifers de-emphasize because they want a legal solution. But three pro-life Presidents have tried and failed to change the Supreme Court so as to be overturn Roe. The chances that a fourth will succeed seems slim to me.

I guess that means I believe in legalizing murder in some cases. Oh well.

C. S. Lewis on homosexuality and the Special Sin Heresy

In taking what we can from C. S. Lewis with respect to the current issues concerning homosexuality and marriage equality, I think there are two points that are raise caution flags for the traditionalist, and one that I think benefit the traditionalist. Here is one of the caution flags: 

Here’s a fellow, you say, who used to come before us as a moral and religious writer, and now, if you please, he’s written a whole chapter describing his old school as a very furnace of impure loves without one word on the heinousness of the sin. But there are two reasons. One you shall hear before this chapter ends. The other is that, as I have said, the sin in question is one of the two (gambling is the other) which I have never been tempted to commit. I will not indulge in futile philippics against enemies I never met in battle.

(“This means, then, that all the other vices you have so largely written about…” Well, yes, it does, and more’s the pity; but it’s nothing to our purpose at the moment.)

Many Christians commit the mistake I like to call the Special Sin thesis, that homosexuality, as opposed to other sins like carelessness in divorce, pornography, or even greed and exploitation of the poor, is a sin in its own special category of wickedness, which, unlike other sins, brings down the wrath of God. I think this is heretical. There are no special sins. 

Lewis goes on: 

The Wyvernians seem to me in retrospect to have been the least spontaneous, in that sense the least boyish, society I have ever known. It would perhaps not be too much to say that in some boys’ lives everything was calculated to the great end of advancement. For this games were played; for this clothes, friends, amusements, and vices were chosen.

And that is why I cannot give pederasty anything like a first place among the evils of the Coll. There is much hypocrisy on this theme. People commonly talk as if every other evil were more tolerable than this. But why? Because those of us who do not share the vice feel for it a certain nausea, as we do, say, for necrophily? I think that of very little relevance to moral judgment. Because it produces permanent perversion? But there is very little evidence that it does. The Bloods would have preferred girls to boys if they could have come by them; when, at a later age, girls were obtainable, they probably took them. Is it then on Christian grounds? But how many of those who fulminate on the matter are in fact Christians? And what Christian, in a society as worldly and cruel as that of Wyvern, would pick out the carnal sins for special reprobation? Cruelty is surely more evil than lust and the World at least as dangerous as the Flesh. The real reason for all the pother is, in my opinion, neither Christian nor ethical. We attack this vice not because it is the worst but because it is, by adult standards, the most disreputable and unmentionable, and happens also to be a crime in English law. The world may lead you only to Hell; but sodomy may lead you to jail and create a scandal, and lose you your job. The World, to do it justice, seldom does that.

If those of us who have known a school like Wyvern dared to speak the truth, we should have to say that pederasty, however great an evil in itself, was, in that time and place, the only foothold or cranny left for certain good things. It was the only counterpoise to the social struggle; the one oasis (though green only with weeds and moist only with fetid water) in the burning desert of competitive ambition. In his unnatural love affairs, and perhaps only there, the Blood went a little out of himself, forgot for a few hours that he was One of the Most Important People There Are. It softens the picture. A perversion was the only chink left through which something spontaneous and uncalculating could creep in. Plato was right after all. Eros, turned upside down, blackened, distorted, and filthy, still bore the traces of his divinity.

Long before the days of the marriage equality movement, I taught Contemporary Moral Issues courses at Northern Illinois University. I had students there with Catholic backgrounds, who had largely abandoned their Catholic beliefs, at least where sexual issues were concerned, except when it came to homosexuality. They hoped to hold on to some semblance of righteousness because, while they certainly weren't good Catholics in their conduct, at least they weren't homosexuals. 

Beware of stereotyping atheists

From Shadow to Light. 

I found this statement interesting:

First, the dogmatic nature of this position is evident to anyone who has actually argued with an atheist. After arguing with hundreds of atheists, I have yet to encounter one who will not back off the extreme nature of this dogmatic posture. That is, I cannot find an atheist who argues as follows:

I agree there is some evidence for theism, enough such that theism can be considered a reasonable position. However, I find this evidence to be unconvincing and weak, thus I remain an atheist.

But in this piece by Jeff Lowder, he takes the exact position you say atheists never take.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/1/15/why-do-so-many-people-have-a-winner-takes-all-approach-to-evidence-about-gods/

There are real “old atheists” out there. The gnus just yell louder.

A Counterintuitive Answer

From Scott Klusendorf's The Vanishing Pro-Life  Apologist. 

Put differently; is there any reasonable person in America today who would argue that while he personally opposed the enslavement of blacks, he wouldn’t oppose the legal right of his neighbor to own one if he so chose? In fact, when people tell me they personally oppose abortion but think it should be legal anyway, I ask a simple question to audit their core beliefs about the unborn. I ask why they personally oppose abortion. Nearly always, the response is, “I oppose it because it kills a baby,” at which point I merely repeat their own words. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight: You say you oppose abortion because it kills a baby, but you think it should be legal to kill babies?”

But how does a pro-life apologist answer a straightforward "yes" here. Yes, it's wrong to kill babies, yes, it's equally wrong to make laws against killing babies under these circumstances.

Does the prolife apologist have anything more than intuition here?

A hard case on abortion

Let's try the following case. A woman has a toddler, and conceives again. At this point, her husband becomes abusive, and she feels it necessary to leave her husband and take the toddler. She has a job, and can barely make it with her toddler. But having two children would break the bank and make it impossible to even care for her one child. Can it be justified for her to abort her fetus in order to make sure she can care for her toddler? 

Abortion laws around the world

Here. 

Astronomer says we are cosmically special, contradicts Hawking

Here. 

The limits of retribution

 There can be limits on retribution based on what we can humanely do. We might think a murderer who tortures his victims to death should himself be tortured. But who could take that job and come out of it a decent human being?

A Lewis scholar reviews Nagel

Lewis scholar Michael Aeschliman review Nagel's Mind and Cosmos. Here.

Hard and soft determinism

Hard and soft determinism  are both determinism and it is the same type of determinism. The difference is in how freedom is defined. With soft determinism, freedom is defined as the ability to do what you want to do. With hard determinism, (and libertarianism) freedom is a matter of being able to do otherwise from what you did given the actual past.

Chronological snobbery once again

 Have we regressed? Just because something has changed over time doesn't necessarily mean it changed for the better? To think that such change is necessarily progress is to commit the fallacy of chronological snobbery.

Tom Gilson's Critique of The Christian Delusion

Here. 

David Bentley Hart on New Atheism

I think I am very close to concluding that this whole “New Atheism” movement is only a passing fad—not the cultural watershed its purveyors imagine it to be, but simply one of those occasional and inexplicable marketing vogues that inevitably go the way of pet rocks, disco, prime-time soaps, and The Bridges of Madison County. This is not because I necessarily think the current “marketplace of ideas” particularly good at sorting out wise arguments from foolish. But the latest trend in à la mode godlessness, it seems to me, has by now proved itself to be so intellectually and morally trivial that it has to be classified as just a form of light entertainment, and popular culture always tires of its diversions sooner or later and moves on to other, equally ephemeral toys.

Christian concerns about Trump

Here. 

If you’re a Christian who voted for Trump, I understand your concerns — jobs, the economy, health care, national security, frustration with the political status quo. What I don’t understand is your heart. All factors considered, were Trump’s calls for massive deportation of immigrants, along with his anti-Semitic dog whistling, racist commentary, documented history of misogyny and his mocking of the vulnerable, worth overlooking in favor of his shaky promises to make things better in your world? If, as Christians, we’re supposed to love our neighbor, a vote for Trump seems a little suspect. Am I wrong? If so, tell me how.

College is not a safe space for Christians, and that is just fine

Here. 

Are religious arguments against gay marriage bad because they are religious?

No, according to George Van Pelt Campbell. 

If Christianity is debunked, why keep debunking it?

From atheist Taylor Carr. Here. 

At the risk of further infuriating some of my critics, I'll end with something I've been wondering for a while - which I genuinely do not intend to be mean-spirited. John Loftus is obviously very proud of his three master's degrees in philosophy of religion. He has brought them up in several posts, in discussions on Facebook, and elsewhere, often to imply that he is qualified to discuss philosophy of religion, while those of us poor young students who haven't earned our degrees yet are not. Normally, I don't bother with petty quibbles over credentials unless there is actually a legitimate appeal to authority to be made. The problem here is that John Loftus quite clearly thinks the field from which he earned his degrees is an illegitimate field. To be frank, he got his three master's, from two Christian universities, in a discipline that his friend Jerry Coyne has referred to as "garbage". So, in all sincerity, I'm left wondering why John Loftus doesn't seem to accept that his degrees are in nonsense. I don't believe that they are, but if philosophy of religion is truly dead, and we should all stop "god-bothering", as James Lindsay calls it, why continue to run a blog like Debunking Christianity, or write books like Christianity is Not Great? You might argue that you're doing your part to bring others into that realization, but why not lead by example?

C. S. Lewis's Critique of Chronological Snobbery

Barfield never made me an Anthroposophist, but his counterattacks destroyed forever two elements in my own thought. In the first place he made short work of what I have called my "chronological snobbery," the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also "a period," and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.

Concerns about assisted suicide, because it is cheaper

 If PAS is available, since people other than the patient have to pay for end-of-life care (which is expensive), wouldn't there be pressure on patients from their financial caregivers, whether family members or insurance companies, to make use of the PAS option? (We won't pay for that, can't you just kill yourself instead and make life easier on us?)

New book on Lewis and politics

Here. 

What do you say to someone who is gay?

Sexual orientation is a matter of who you are naturally attracted to sexually. Some people seem to be sexually attracted to the same sex, others to both sexes, and some only to the opposite sex. Now, traditional sexual morality says that these desires can only be acted on where there is a marriage, and marriage, in the sacred sense is only possible for opposite-sex partners. I seriously doubt that this is simply genetic, as some have argued, but for some people at least it doesn't seem to be alterable. Trying to "pray the gay away" doesn't seem to work for some people, and the failure of Exodus International seems to support this contention. But if traditional Christian sexual morality holds, then people who are in this condition through no fault of their own are morally obligated to be celibate. It doesn't seem to me that those who are in that condition can alter their condition, nor does it seem to me that they had to have committed some sin in order to get into that condition. 

What does the Church have to say to such people? There are four possibilities. 

1) You are this way because God hates you. When Westboro Baptist says that God hates fags, they don't mean that since you chose to be a fag, you is angry with you. They believe in a particularly strong version of Reformed theology according to which God chooses some for heaven, whom he loves, and he hates everyone else. And one expression of God's hatred for you would be if you were to be an homosexual. That is a pretty good sign that God has created you for the fiery pits. God doesn't have you because you're gay, you are gay because God hates you. 

2) You can change your orientation and become straight, through prayer, Bible study, and therapy. I think this was the position of Focus on the Family, and is the basis of Exodus International, and it looks to me like it doesn't work. And I when I read histories of the gay rights movement, and try to explain why so many Americans now accept gay marriage, this chapter in the story tends to be left out. 

3) The celibacy option. This is the view that, yes, there are people who are unalterably gay, and these people are obligated to be celibate. Technically, there is nothing wrong with being gay any more than there is anything wrong with having black skin or blue eyes, but the moral path to acceptable to intimate relationships is closed to them. 

4) The Lord is my shepherd and he knows I'm gay (the title of a book by Troy Perry, the founder of the Metropolitan Community Church). This is to hold that the traditional prescriptions against homosexual conduct are not absolute, and that gays should seek a homosexual equivalent of traditional heterosexual marriage. 

These are the four options. 1 seems unacceptable, 2 doesn't work, so 3 and 4 are what is left.

Mafia morality

 What does it mean to have morals? Does it means to have a set of rules one lives by? Sure, atheists have that. So does the Mafia.

So, what does it mean, exactly?

On an unexpected topic: the Spanish Inquisition

Catholic Answers provides a discussion here. 

Did the universe have a beginning

Manuel Alfonseca discusses this matter here.

Homosexuality and the fear of underpopulation

Some would also argue that while it might have made sense to restrict same-sex marriage at a time when reproductive failure was likely to cause harm, we have gotten past that point. The dangers come from overpopulation, not from underpopulation. In the Bible, children were a blessing and barrenness was a curse. That is because a loss of population left the nation vulnerable to hostile attack and the family unable to work the fields when the father became too old to work. 

But this is no longer the case, right? Or not?

Atheism and morality

There is nothing about  agnosticism or even atheism that prevents people from adopting moral values and following them. However atheism does make it more difficult to hold that there are certain moral values which are the right values, as opposed to others which are not the right values. On religious views, there are correct moral values, whether people follow them or not. If one person says one should be generous and another says we should always be selfish, it makes sense to say that someone is mistaken. On the other hand, without God, it is harder to argue that one side of that dispute is right and the other is not.

The Bible teaches that Jesus was bisexual. I'm not kidding

Whether a person is gay or not depends on who they are attracted to sexually. The Bible, for example, contains proscriptions against sexual acts, not sexual orientations.

Traditional Christianity is restrictive of  sexual conduct in general, and does put same-sex attracted persons at a disadvantage with respect to being able to have a morally acceptable sex life. Some Christians are not fully traditionalists on sexual issues, however. However, it is a mistake to say that Christianity teaches that there is something wrong with being gay. It doesn't say that at all.

To this is can be replied that not only sexual acts, but the lust for them, can be sinful. However, because Christianity makes a crucial distinction between temptation and sin (Jesus experienced the former but not the latter).

In fact, if you take literally the statement that Jesus was tempted in all things just as we are, (Heb: 4:15), then we have to conclude that the Bible teaches that Jesus was bisexual. He experienced temptation both to hetersexual sin and to homosexual sin, so he had to have been bisexual. QED.

Is there a purpose for human existence?

If we are evolutionary accidents, then our biological purpose is to reproduce ourselves, but even people who believe that we are evolutionary accidents don't take this as a moral imperative. (Otherwise, people who are atheists would be even more strongly anti-gay than Christians, since gay people aren't doing their jobs and reproducing).  But what they will say, instead, is that there is no given purpose for human existence, and we can choose what purpose we consider important.  But that leads to the conclusion that  apart from a teleological world view, there is no purpose for our life that comes from the nature of reality. 

One third of atheists believe in an afterlife

Here. 

Eric Erickson on Trump as the anti-Christ

I do not think that Donald Trump is anti-Christ. But I do think what you will read below shows you that there is a growing softness and desperation in the American church that is only going to grow. - Erickson 

Here. 

I have a problem with the deeply un-Christian character that Trump consistently exhibits, and even without apocalyptic thinking here, he is deeply problematic from a Christian standpoint. And this is independent of the fundamental divide between liberals and conservatives. 

When you say that you have the right to approach women sexually without permission, and that wealth and position of power gives you permission to do so, then you have something deeply un-Christian. I am not saying that this can't be repented of, but someone who has said those things has to really walk these attitudes back in ways in which Trump has not. 

A problem with the divine command theory

God by definition is omniscient, omniscient, and perfectly good. If we define God in terms of good, but define good in terms of God, isn't that circular? 

Scientists: Dawkins misrepresents science

Controversial British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is well-known for his criticism of religion, but a new Rice University study of British scientists reveals that a majority who mentioned Dawkins' work during research interviews reject his approach to public engagement and said his work misrepresents science and scientists because he conveys the wrong impression about what science can do and the norms that scientists observe in their work.

Here.