Over in the comment thread of last week’s post on standards of proof for miracles, P. Coyle and Iota have been hashing out the classic argument that a truly unambiguous miracle would be a blow against our free will, forcing us to believe in God. I want to walk through and discuss their positions, since this is a common Christian contention (and because it’s going to set me up perfectly for a Harry Potter fanfiction reference in today’s Sunday’s Good Book post).... Read more
Over at Friendly Atheist, one reader had a question for Richard the advice columnist: I have a quick and simple question for you. Since you do not believe in god, why do you capitalize “God” in your texts? I share many of the same beliefs/ideals as you, therefore not seeing a reason to capitalize the word “god”. Richard replied that he used the upper case G for clarity and to avoid putting people off needlessly, and I was in total... Read more
My thanks to the many people who are commenting on yesterday’s post listing common mistakes atheists make about Catholics. I hope it helps lead people to more productive arguments. The item that seems to be drawing the most comment is mistake number two – thinking that Catholics are biblical literalists. Now that we established they’re not, most of the atheist commenters on the site, including me, are at a loss as to how exactly Catholics do make sense of the... Read more
This week, Jen of Conversion Diary (the gracious host of this blog carnival) wrote a piece for her new gig at the National Catholic Register called “The Catholic’s Guide to Atheists.” A recent convert to Catholicism, Jen tried to debunk some misconceptions many Catholics has about atheists. In this week’s Quick Takes, I’ll try to return the favor. Corrections and quibbles welcome! And if you’ve got a frequently made mistake that rankles, post it in the comments and I might add... Read more
Patrick had an interesting observation on the comment thread of my post on jump discontinuities in identity (whether induced by prayer or otherwise): As for discontinuity of identity while asleep… I suffer that every night, and I suspect everyone else does too. I can’t remember the moment of falling asleep. There is a period of time between laying down in bed and actually falling asleep that I experience every night, but which I am incapable of remembering. Likewise I have... Read more
The post last week on being prayed for sparked some interesting questions about free will and belief. I thought returning to that topic would be a nice complement to the discussion about choosing to alter your own will that’s developing out of Tristyn’s pharmaceutical thought experiment. Disagreement arose over whether a petitionary prayer to God seeking my conversion was an affront to my free will or agency. Posters P. Coyle and Hendy made the great point that belief is not... Read more
Tristyn of Eschatological Psychosis jumps the line by prefacing her comment on my review of Brook’s The Social Animal with ‘TRANHUMANIST QUESTION.’ I am powerless to resist. Here’s what she asked: So, we have established that if, in fact, holding warm beverages makes you nicer, going out of your way to find a warm beverage before interacting with an annoying person is acceptable to you. Seems fairly reasonable, though (I think) clearly in a closer-to-ideal world we wouldn’t need such... Read more
I like the suggestion from the Dinosaur Comic below, and, may I suggest, if you’d like to celebrate twice a year, that you look into Mole Day? I am a tremendous fan, and dressed up as a knight errant serving mathematics for some Halloween in high school. All that’s really needed for a knight’s costume is a tunic, tights, a belt, and a sword. Sadly, I can’t find any photos of my math sword, which had two steel rulers for... Read more
Christian of The Thinking Grounds has posted a new installment in his series on defining the body. His focus this go-round is on debunking the idea that the body can be simply defined as that which is obedient to our will. He goes through a couple of examples of bodies that are subject to limited control but are still accepted as ours, including bodies stricken by paralysis, conjoined twins and two-headed snakes, or involuntary physical motions. I’m still deciding whether I actually... Read more
After reading my slam on David Brooks’s The Social Animal, Dylan had some objections: “Other than the fact that it’s terribly, terribly written and completely expository (it makes the Emile, on which it is clearly modeled, look like an actual novel by comparison), what’s so “yikes” about the exact passage you excerpted? Can you really be such a HP&TMoR fan/transhumanist and also think that treating so-called “cognitive biases” as limitations to be overcome is tantamount to “unweaving the rainbow”? I agree... Read more
Unequally Yoked
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