Groothuis on propositions and materialism

Here. 

C. S. Lewis's Review of the Hobbit from 1937

Here. 

Pope Francis on evolution

Here. 

What creationists don't say

Religious believers, if they are creationists, typically challenge the science behind evolution. They don't just say "Sure science says that, but science is wrong." 

But I suppose they could, if they wanted to. 

The truth value of unprovable statements

Many statements which are not provable, at least not by us, are either true or false, and we agree that they are either true or false even if we have no way of determining whether they are true or false. A good example would be

1)______ committed the Jack the Ripper murders. For any name you put in, they either did or did not commit those crimes. Yet we have no doubt that there is someone (or more than one person) for which that statement is true, just as it is false of everyone else. 

2) There is life of comparable intelligence to our own on other planets. 

Is there a population bomb?

Apparently, fears have been exaggerated.

Here. 

God and Obamacare: Fact or opinion?

The fact-opinion distinction is less than clear. By fact do we mean something which can be true or false, or is it something that can be proven true of false. Is an opinion something that is neither true nor false, or is it something that cannot be proven true or false. 

There are a lot of things that can be true or false, about which evidence is certainly relevant, which nevertheless there is no proof that ought to convince all reasonable persons. The existence of God is one of them. Whether Obamacare is doing more good than harm, or harm than good, is another. 

Notes on the Philosophy and Politics paper.

I think you have to sign into academia.edu before you can download. But the idea is that academics have to analyze the issues and come to terms with them fairly and honestly, and not pay attention to what the political implications of their statements are. 

An example of this would be criticisms of Thomas Nagel. Nagel is a non-theist who develops a lot of the arguments against naturalistic materialism that I do. But he thinks you can accept the arguments supporting the idea that reason and "the mental" is fundamental to the universe without becoming a theist. In the process he is critical of the overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything. Now, I can understand why many secularists think that he's mistaken, that materialistic naturalism doesn't have quite the severe problems Nagel thinks they do. But, on top of this comes strong message that he's giving aid and comfort to religious believers and even (gasp!) intelligent design advocates, and they virtually imply that if that is what he really thinks he ought to shut up about it because of the bad political implications of making his case. After all, you don't want someone giving ammo to those "armies of the night." When people criticize them for heresy hunting, they just reply by saying "We're just criticize arguments we don't accept. Shouldn't all ideas be open to criticism?" But no, you aren't just doing that, you're saying his ideas lead to "mischief" and one philosopher, perhaps jokingly, said that his books should be put on a modern secular version of the Index of Forbidden Books. 

To them, I want to say, cut the political correctness and follow the argument where it leads. 

The paper argues that the political involvement of philosophers may lead them to not give fair consideration to positions that could be used to support their political opponents. I am inclined to agree.

Why Philosophers Should Stay Out of Politics

Here. 

The LGBT divide

I think there's actually a split in the pro-LGBT community on the issue of marriage. There is a conservative wing of it that basically says that traditional marriage is just fine, it just needs to be extended to same-sex couples. This is typical of Christian supporters of SSM such as Matthew Vines. They believe in such things as lifetime commitment, two and only two partners, marital fidelity, etc., they just think that for people who are gay in their orientation, they should exercise that with a partner of the same sex. Such people would be embarrassed, I think by Richard Carrier's adaptation of LGBT rhetoric to support polyamory.

People like Gessen are on the radical wing of the pro-LGBT movement, they are happy to see the opposite sex requirement eliminated for marriage, but they reject the rest of traditional marriage as well.

The difference between these two wings has been de-emphasized during the battle for SSM. After Obergfell, I strongly suspect that this disagreement develop more and more into a debate within the pro-LGBT community.

Is polygamy next?

Maybe. 

Debunking the wrong answer

I noticed John Loftus objecting to my comments by, typically, bringing up Scandanavian countries. However, PL's point is relevant here, that strong secularization tends to move a country toward underpopulation, which makes it difficult for them to avoid a Muslim majority. And, I would also have to make the note that the secularization of those countries took place with very little of the religion-bashing typical of new atheism. If religion dies within a culture, I think it is more likely to die of neglect than anything else.

There is a sense in which writing books like the God Delusion and running websites like Debunking Christianity is a self-defeating enterprise. What you are saying by doing that is that God and Christianity are so important that someone needs to take lots of time and effort attacking it. I know they don't intend to leave this message, but that is still the effect. These people spend a lot of time and energy on what they don't believe, in debunking the wrong answer. If it's really worth the time and energy to criticize something, then there are rules, such as the principle of charity, that have to be followed. If not, then you are better off pursuing the right answer than attacking the wrong answer.

Commercial services and expression

CM: First, who wants to give a business, carrying out a commercial transaction, authority of approval? Should fat people not be allowed to buy iPhones because they make the technology look unattractive? Should book stores refuse to sell to people who wear crosses around their necks because the bookseller doesn't approve of religious garb? 

VR: The answer to this involves a distinction between commercial services that provide expression, or speech, on behalf of gay weddings, and those that don't. For the former, I there is a problem with a business putting a sign up in their hardware store that says "no gays." (So if a gay person needs a screw, they have to get it somewhere else). However, businesses that provide celebratory expression should be able, if this is a stated policy, to provide that expression only if that is what they support. If you are a professional speechwriter, should you be accused of discrimination if you will only provide your services for Republican candidates and not Democratic candidates?

Apologies for the bad pun. 

Make Christianity the state religion? Actually there's quite a lot of support for it!

Here. 

I am surprised.

The moral impact of Christianity, and atheism

A great deal of fundamental ideas which we all accept as a matter of social justice came from Christians that was not accepted by, say, the leaders of Roman society at the time. Now, the history isn't perfect, and there is plenty you can use against it in the Bible and in Christian history. But what does evolution give you? Evolution says that certain critters have certain advantages over certain other critters, and that using those advantages allows the critters with those advantages to pass on their genes. If materialistic atheism is true, there is nothing in reality that supports treating people with prima facie disadvantages as equal, as opposed to simply using your advantage over them for you and those you feel close to. 

It is not as if everything in morality is religious, it's not. There are two forces in human nature that very often push us in a moral direction: social utility and sympathy. But we get social utility from those like ourselves (the social disutility of being a n-lover at a Klan meeting should be obvious), and we tend to lack sympathy for others when the others are one of "them" and not one of us. The antidote to this is found in the parable of the Good Samaritan but it cuts against human nature to a very large extent. 

I find it distressing that movements within atheism are starting to see the conflict between belief and unbelief as a war, not a debate, and are starting to adopt an us vs. them mentality. I remember the well-intentioned ideas that launched the French Revolution and the Russian revolution, and remember also where these movements ended: with guillotines and gulags. As a result I am concerned about what is going to happen if the secularist movement today gets a lot of political power. These people started off with combining secularism with a passion for social justice, and look what happened to them. The death tolls of the Soviet Union far outstrip all the "holy horrors" of Christianity, such as the Inquisition. It's not even close. One commentator over on Debunking Christianity once started talking about putting Christians in camps and preventing them from reproducing. Of course most people of that mindset don't actually come out and say this stuff, but that doesn't mean they would resist the temptation if they thought they could actually cure the great "mind virus" that way.

What is deism? Not what you think!

Bob: 

Keep in mind, Victor, that those words were penned by a deist - a man who believed there were no consequences to his actions (or inactions). His "God" was a distant, uninvolved, non-actor, Who cared not what happened in the creation He (quite unaccountably) set in motion aeons ago. 

Lord, give me an honest atheist any day over a damned deist!

I don't think you have Jefferson's desim quite right Bob. It's quite different from what most people think it is.

If you believe in the idea of a transcendent, as opposed to a simply immanent God (such as many Hindus accept), there are choices here as well. For example, some believers in God are called deists, in that they don’t accept special revelation. By special revelation, I mean deliberate activity on the part of God to make people aware of who God is and what he expects from people. Typically people think of deists as holding that God created the universe and then ceased to be active within it.

However, historically deists were committed to the following five points.
1) God exists
2) God is to be worshipped
3) The practice of virtue is the true worship of God
4) People must repent of wrongdoing
5) There are future rewards and punishments.

This is somewhat different from what people today think of as deism.

Avery Dulles on Jefferson's Deism.

Religious motives for doing good

What are the religious motivations for good behavior? Is it all reward and punishment, or is it motivating for people to believe that their good actions are actions that fulfill the intended purpose of their existence? 

Left-wing tolerance

Herbert Marcuse wrote: 
“Tolerance is extended to policies, conditions, and modes of behavior which should not be tolerated because they are impeding, if not destroying, the chances of creating an existence without fear and misery. This sort of tolerance strengthens the tyranny of the majority against which authentic liberals protested…   Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left.”

Marcusian tolerance seems to be taking over.  See here. 

Marriage and limiting government

Marriage licenses, at the very least, require explanation. It would be interesting to know what other countries do on this issue. 

One argument on this issue might be this. People who enter marriages naturally bring children into the mix. But having children means adding mouths to feed, and children to educate, etc. So the government compensates people who risk this with various financial advantages. However gay relationships don't incur this risk, so they should not receive this kind of compensation.

One firm conviction I have on this issue is that my government is not competent to adjudicate the moral question of homosexuality one way or the other. I am against sodomy laws and forcing bakers to bake rainbow shaped cakes with two grooms on top for exactly the same reason.

A review of Mind and Cosmos

Here.