Ethics Without Other People are Empty

Last updated on: September 11, 2012 at 4:57 pm By Leah Libresco

I don’t understand ethical systems or teleology meant for humans that doesn’t talk about our relationships to other humans. That, in a nutshell, is why I hated Steve Antinoff’s Spiritual Atheism. Antinoff tries to find a way for atheists to live without God. He writes ”Spiritual atheism begins with a triple realization: that our experience of ourselves and our world leaves us ultimately dissatisfied, that our dissatisfaction is intolerable and must be broken through, and that there is no God.”... Read more

Where can I find atheists arguing about ethics?

Last updated on: September 11, 2012 at 4:54 pm By Leah Libresco

After reading “What Atheists and Republican Strategists Have in Common.” one anonymous commenter took issue with my assumption that popular atheists try to act as philosophers. It’s true that there are tough discussions that need to be had, but I think you give the average atheist – even the average outspoken atheist – too much credit. You’re a bit too quick to discount the possibility that many atheists really don’t have any philosophy because they’ve never had any curiosity about... Read more

7 Quick Takes (1/7/11)

Last updated on: September 11, 2012 at 2:26 pm By Leah Libresco

School starts on Monday! So that’s when I’ll be posting my responses to the New Year’s Challenge and listing the challenges I’ll take on. This weekend, I’ll have a book post up, but for right now, I’m exhausted from the terrible task of cleaning my room (especially since I was in the middle of a paper when I left, and I just tossed things on the floor and the bed, locked up and ran). So today’s Quick Takes are just... Read more

The Purpose Paradox

Last updated on: September 10, 2012 at 11:06 am By Leah Libresco

My ability to recognize purposefulness is incredibly contingent on my ability to understand the natural world and to understand other minds. I have to have a decent theory of the limitations of natural processes to be able to recognize objects/processes that transcend them. Lukas’s example of pulsars is apt. Until scientists realized that there could be stars that naturally emitted radio wave bursts at regular intervals, many of them reasonably wondered if they could be a signal from an alien... Read more

God as an Epileptic Tree

Last updated on: September 10, 2012 at 11:05 am By Leah Libresco

This is a guest post, part of a series of guest posts addressing the question of whether we can discern purposefulness in the natural world. As such the opinions expressed below are highly likely not to reflect my opinions, as you’re sure to hear in more detail later this week. Today’s post is by Eli, who currently blogs at Rust Belt Philosophy. I’ve been asked to write today about whether or not we can “discern purposefulness, and from that infer a... Read more

You Think You’re So Special?

Last updated on: September 10, 2012 at 11:05 am By Leah Libresco

This is a guest post, part of a series of guest posts addressing the question of whether we can discern purposefulness in the natural world. As such the opinions expressed below are highly likely not to reflect my opinions, as you’re sure to hear in more detail later this week. Today’s post is by March Hare, who has previously blogged at Reasonable Doubt. You are a highly unlikely creature. The fact all your body works together is amazing, how is it... Read more

Tech Support: Is there a way to turn off spam filtering in Blogger?

Last updated on: September 10, 2012 at 11:04 am By Leah Libresco

Can anyone help me find a way to disable Blogger’s spam filter for comments? Since it was rolled out, it’s primarily caught legitimate comments on this blog. I usually moderate comments from my phone, using email alerts, but those notifications don’t let me know whether any given comment was actually published or whether it’s sitting in the spam filter. As a result, I have to keep popping over to blogger to check the spam quarantine, and I would prefer not to.... Read more

Establishing a Criterion of Purposefulness

Last updated on: September 10, 2012 at 11:04 am By Leah Libresco

This is a guest post, part of a series of guest posts addressing the question of whether we can discern purposefulness in the natural world. As such the opinions expressed below are highly likely not to reflect my opinions, as you’re sure to hear in more detail later this week. Today’s post is by Lukas who has previously blogged at Mo-dernity, Mo-Problems. In response to Leah’s post, I pointed to the article Anthropic Coincidences and put forward the following argument: Assuming... Read more

Identifying Purposefulness [Index]

Last updated on: September 10, 2012 at 11:04 am By Leah Libresco

During the series addressing Michael Egnor’s Eight Questions for Atheists, I spent a post discussing why there was regularity in nature, and whether that regularity had any implications about a possible design for the world or the existence of a Designer. Three commenters got into a lengthy argument/discussion in the comments section, and, this week, I’ve invited each of them to write a guest post explaining their take on the issue. The discussion in the comments section was free... Read more

Throwing Ideas into the Arena

Last updated on: September 10, 2012 at 1:30 am By Leah Libresco

I’ve been in an extended commenting debate over at Debunking Christianity, after mentioning Loftus in my post yesterday talking about why a diversity of opinions isn’t always a good thing. I have a weakness for pugilistic rhetoric, which may have muddied my message slightly, so I’m reposting a comment I made there over here. If you’re interested, click here to read through the thread. A brief quote from my interlocutor (click above to read the whole thread, so I don’t do... Read more