The Perfect Goodness of God – Again
I have been struggling for weeks to try to re-state Richard Swinburne’s argument concerning the coherence of the idea of there being a perfectly good person (from Chapter 11 of The Coherence of Theism, hereafter: COT). I think I can now at least point the way as to how to do this. The overarching argument … The Perfect Goodness of God – Again
Cat: Jewish Zombie can make you live forever?
HT: AtheistSoup.com
Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism
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 states, agency detection and imposing patterns on noise. This paper investigates the proposal that individual differences in belief will reflect cognitive processing styles, with high functioning autism being an extreme … Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism
Christianity Today’s Review of Susan Jacoby’s The Great Agnostic
I haven’t read Jacoby’s book, but Christianity Today’s review strikes me as a sympathetic if somewhat critical review. LINK
Petition about Boy Scouts Atheism Ban
The Boy Scouts of America is in the news again because it is apparently reconsidering its ban on homosexuals. Since their discrimination against nontheists doesn’t seem to get nearly as much attention, I wanted to use this opportunity to remind Secular Outpost readers of the Change.org petition to the BSA to stop their ban on … Petition about Boy Scouts Atheism Ban
Feser Insults (Insulted?) Parsons Again
If Edward Feser is not yet the JP Holding of theistic philosophers, he seems to be well on his way. I don’t always read his blog, but his latest item caught my attention. “God and Man at HuffPro“ In that brief article, he links to this older article: “So you think you understand the cosmological … Feser Insults (Insulted?) Parsons Again
Hillarious Summary of the Argument from Shotgun Weddings Against Same-Sex Marriage
Over at Preliator pro Causa, Joe McKen presents a hillarious summary of what has to be one of the absolute worst arguments ever made against same-sex marriage. Marriage should be limited to unions of a man and a woman because they alone can “produce unplanned and unintended offspring,” opponents of gay marriage have told the … Hillarious Summary of the Argument from Shotgun Weddings Against Same-Sex Marriage
An Argument Against Moral Facts
In a seminar on Metaethics (h/t John Brunero) , I encountered an argument against moral facts that I hadn’t heard before. Here is a brief sketch: (1) We’re justified in believing in some fact only if it plays a role in the explanation of our observations and other non-moral facts. (2) Moral facts don’t play … An Argument Against Moral Facts
New URLs for RSS Readers
If you are using an RSS reader, please update your reader as follows. To follow The Secular Outpost at its new site on Patheos, subscribe to this feed: secularfrontier.infidels.org/rss Because we migrated our Disqus account from the old site to the new site, the location of the RSS feed for comments is unchanged. In case … New URLs for RSS Readers
How the Distinction between Deductive vs. Inductive Arguments Can Mask Uncertainty
Everyone who has taken a philosophy 101 class has learned the distinction between deductive and inductive arguments. It goes like this. Only deductive arguments may be valid; an argument is valid if and only if the truth of its premises guarantees the truth of its premises. Otherwise, the argument is invalid. If an argument is … How the Distinction between Deductive vs. Inductive Arguments Can Mask Uncertainty