Month: October 2011

LINK: Study on Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism

Catherine Caldwell-Harris and Patrick McNamara have published a very intriguing study in the cognitive science of religion entitled, “Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism.” Here is the abstract: The cognitive science of religion is a new field which explains religious belief as emerging from normal cognitive processes such as inferring others’ mental LINK: Study on Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism

Further Evidence of the Lack of Civil Discourse: This Time a Theistic Example

Apparently there’s a new anti-atheist book out called The God Haters: Angry Atheists, Shallow Scholars, Silly Scientists, Pagan Preachers, and Embattled Evolutionists Declare War on Christians by Don Boys. To say that this book is an example of “unfriendly theism” appears to be a massive understatement. I always chuckle when a complete stranger tells me Further Evidence of the Lack of Civil Discourse: This Time a Theistic Example

Justin Barrett’s “Hyperactive Agency Detection Device” (HADD)

Another item for the “not new, but new for me” category. Justin Barrett is a cognitive scientist of religion and the author of Why Would Anyone Believe in God? In that book, Barrett advances an intriguing explanatory hypothesis for why most people believe in God: the Hyperactive Agency Detection Device (HADD) hypothesis. I have to Justin Barrett’s “Hyperactive Agency Detection Device” (HADD)

The Implausibility of Appealing to the Many-Worlds Hypothesis to Defeat the Fine-Tuning Argument

I know what I am about to write will be controversial among atheists–one of them may (?) be a certain professional physicist who writes regularly for The Secular Outpost–but I have never agreed with the idea of appealing to the hypothesis of multiple universes (“multiverse”) as an objection to the fine-tuning argument for God’s existence. The Implausibility of Appealing to the Many-Worlds Hypothesis to Defeat the Fine-Tuning Argument

LINK: Monton on “Design Inferences in an Infinite Universe”

Yet another one for the “not new, but new for me” category. Philosopher Bradley Monton has written an extremely intriguing essay on design inferences in an infinite universe. Here is the abstract: This paper addresses two main questions. First, how does one determine that something has the features it does as a result of design, LINK: Monton on “Design Inferences in an Infinite Universe”

LINK: Schellenberg’s Review of The Cambridge Companion to Atheism

J.L. Schellenberg is arguably one of the leading philosophers of religion in the world and, among other things, the philosopher who formulated the argument from divine hiddenness for atheism. Schellenberg reviewed The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (ed. Michael Martin) in the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Here is the conclusion of Schellenberg’s review: I myself think LINK: Schellenberg’s Review of The Cambridge Companion to Atheism