William Lane Craig is a strong candidate for the greatest living proponent of natural theology. But that’s because serious philosophers have almost entirely abandoned natural theology. A guide to Craig’s track record of dishonesty and fundamentalist lunacy.
An index of why William Lane Craig is a dishonest genocide-defending creepy homophobe
May 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Will human-level AI be created this century? Nobody really knows
May 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment
That’s the take-away from MIRI executive director Luke Muehlhauser’s recent blog post, “When Will AI Be Created?” He writes: “We can’t be confident AI will come in the next 30 years, and we can’t be confident it’ll take more than 100 years, and anyone who is confident of either claim is pretending to know too much.”
On disemvowelling and creationism
May 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment
I’ve been learning to program in Python, and midway through an “online intro to Python” thing I’ve been doing, I realized it had given me everything I’d need to write a Python script for disemvowelling text. Also: my policy on creationism in the comments.
Star Trek Into Darkness was about as mediocre as I expected
May 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment
I expected Star Trek Into Darkness to be at least mildly enjoyable. And it was in fact mildly enjoyable. Unfortunately, it also ends up less being a movie than a series of action scenes strung together by references to Trek lore that will only make sense to fans.
Star Trek’s reactionary take on human enhancement
May 16, 2013 By 13 Comments
Reading transhumaist fiction makes Star Trek look as reactionary as Lord of the Rings. All of Trek’s greatest villains are enhanced, while enhanced heroes are relegated to Token Orc status.
Is there more to life than happiness?
May 14, 2013 By 7 Comments
Pleasure isn’t all we care about that. Is the same true of happiness? If religion had a positive effect on happiness, would you want to be religious? Could Paris Hilton ever be happy?
On the stupidity of asking, “but where’s the evidence we need evidence for things?”
May 11, 2013 By 74 Comments
Dealing with a Christian who insists asking for evidence is self-defeating.
Do 29 percent of Americans really think an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years?
May 10, 2013 By 4 Comments
Brian Lieter links to the following story, concluding “Large numbers of Americans are completely nuts”: Supporters and opponents of gun control have very different fundamental beliefs about the role of guns in American society. Overall, the poll finds that 29 percent of Americans think that an armed revolution in order to protect liberties might be [...]
Who do you want me to interview?
May 9, 2013 By 13 Comments
Hi everybody, last year I talked a bit about starting up a podcast, but never sorted out the technical difficulties. Now I think I’ve managed to do that, and need people to interview, so consider this a thread to offer suggestions.
Who takes the likes of Sye Ten Bruggencate seriously?
May 9, 2013 By 4 Comments
Sye Ten Bruggencate makes Bill O’Reilly look smart. So how does he manage to make a living as a full-time apologist? Could young-earth creationism be the answer?
I wish more Christians knew this Bible verse
May 8, 2013 By 18 Comments
If only more Christians knew what the Bible really says about prayer…
How intelligible is intelligence?
May 7, 2013 By 7 Comments
This is important, because if all we need to make human-level AI is a relatively small number of key insights, the development of human-level AI might come seemingly out of nowhere. On the other hand, if it’s going to take a slow grind of R&D, we’re likely to get more of a warning. There are also potential implications for the impact of AI and what we can do to manage it. So how intelligible is intelligence?
Greta Christina on infighting vs. healthy debate
May 6, 2013 By Leave a Comment
A week ago, Greta Christina posted an article she had written that originally appeared in Free Inquiry on the difference between infighting and healthy debate. Her suggested criteria are mostly very good, with a couple I’d quibble with and a couple that look hopeless.
Discussion topic: presuppositionalism
May 3, 2013 By 19 Comments
Because I haven’t tangled with presuppositional apologetics in awhile.
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