Abstract: The cosmic singularity provides negligible evidence for creation in the finite past, and hence theism. A physical theory might have no metric or multiple metrics, so a ‘beginning’ must involve a first moment, not just finite age. Whether one dismisses singularities or takes them seriously, physics licenses no first moment. The analogy between the Big Bang and stellar gravitational collapse indicates that a Creator … [Read more...]
J. Brian Pitts: Why the Big Bang Singularity Does Not Help the Kalam Cosmological Argument for Theism
November 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment
CNN: Election results raise questions about Christian right’s influence
November 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
LINK … [Read more...]
Lydia McGrew’s Team Blog
October 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment
This isn't new, but worth mentioning. Lydia McGrew has a team blog, What's Wrong with the World: Dispatches from the 10th Crusade. Its stated purpose is to oppose Jihad and Liberalism. Liberalism is defined in a way that seems to include atheism.LINK … [Read more...]
Is This What Happens When Children are Homeschooled?
October 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
This is a letter to the editor of a New Zealand paper, The Northern Outlook. HT: Evan Fales … [Read more...]
Paul Kurtz, January 25, 1925 – October 21, 2012
October 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment
(The following was written by Eddie Tabash and posted with permission)I take great pride in being the major financial backer of Internet Infidels. The intellectual fire power that this website brings to bear in the quest to refute supernatural claims is a sheer delight in a world so riven with superstition. My actual induction, as it were, into freethought organizations was in 1995, when Paul Kurtz brought me into the three organizations he founded: the Center for Inquiry, Council for Secular … [Read more...]
Prosblogion: Physicist Sean Carroll on God and Modern Physics
September 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Kenny Pearce at Prosblogion comments on Sean Carroll's essay, "Does the Universe Need God?", which we linked to a couple of days ago.The article is a model of constructive dialog between philosophy and physics. Carroll shows engagement with the major philosophical arguments under discussion, and does not come off as condescending or dismissive. He also provides concise and helpful summaries of the relevant physics. Additionally, the article shows an admirable degree of epistemic humility, … [Read more...]
Paul Draper’s Review of Goetz and Taliaferro’s Naturalism
September 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment
There are many gems in this review; here is one.To begin with, the alleged advantage that metaphysical theists have because they attribute necessary existence to God is not real, since there is no more reason to believe that a concrete non-natural divine person can exist necessarily than there is to think that nature can exist necessarily. The ontological argument, almost everyone agrees, is a failure, and we cannot just "see" the necessity of the statement "God exists" in the way that we … [Read more...]
Atheist Ethicist: Morality and Questions Belonging to Science
September 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Over at the Atheist Ethicist, Alonzo Fyfe comments on Baggini, Krauss, and Coyne on science and morality. In this field, among these people, it would seem that somebody would start weeding out the nonsense claims. Yet, I continue to find statements that would embarrass a student in Philosophy 121: Introduction to Ethics. If there is going to be progress made in this field, then those who dedicate themselves to talking about this subject need to make some minimal effort to clear out the junk … [Read more...]
Sean Carroll: Does the Universe Need God?
September 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment
That is the title of Carroll's essay in The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity. Carroll argues that cosmology doesn’t require or support theological hypotheses. An online copy is available at the blog, What There Is and Why There Is Anything.LINK … [Read more...]
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