I just got back from Belgium, where I was on the PhD defense committee of Maarten Boudry, a philosopher interested in science and pseudoscience and science and religion issues. He’s already done some really good work and he put together an excellent thesis. I hope those of us interested in such matters will be hearing … Voas paper

Stuart Elliot pointed me to an interesting interview with Nidhal Guessoum online, concerning Islam and science. I met Guessoum last month at the AAAS meeting. Interestingly, I was responding to a question after my talk, and I gave Guessoum as an example. He turned out to be in the audience. (I had not met him … Guessoum interview

I forget whether I have posted this before. If so, pardon the redundancy. Having had on two occasions the privilege of debating Prof. William Lane Craig, I found the experiences both exhilarating and frustrating. One point of frustration was that Prof. Craig often appeals to the “inner testimony” of the Holy Spirit as trumping any … The “Inner Testimony” of the Holy Spirit

Victor Reppert posted the following remarks on his Dangerous Idea blog relating to the topic of Christianity and the development of science: “A couple of things off the top of my head. First, the major advances of modern science, when it became clear that science could really make a difference not only in the way … Victor Reppert on Christianity and Science

I just got notice about this: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/01/brutal-facts-about-keith-parsons.html The BRUTAL FACTS about Keith Parsons (Gasp! Shudder!). Woo. I must have really gotten to this guy. If he is gainfully employed his boss should really find some more work for him. Clearly, he has waaaaaay too much time on his hands.

The atheist blogosphere (to the extent that there is such a thing) seems convulsed about the question about whether public advocacy of atheism etc. is a good idea—after all, maybe the public can’t handle it. (I’ll just mention a post by Jason Rosenhouse; follow the links back from him if you’re at all interested.) Everybody’s … Disturbing the public

After my presentation Friday at the AAAS meeting, I stopped by the reception of DoSER (AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion). It was interesting, but my impression was that this was a bunch of people trying to keep the peace by setting aside discordant voices: Dawkins-style nonbelievers and Discovery Institute-style believers. (In other words, … DoSER

Among some secular people observing events in the Middle East, I run into some worries that secular dictatorships will be replaced with worse—theocracies like what the Muslim Brotherhood has envisioned throughout most of its organizational history. Maybe. What is going to come out the present upheaval in unpredictable. In the Middle East, often the only … Kleptocracy as secularism

I did not especially want to get into a discussion about Jesus, the incarnation, the trinity, etc. However, my claim that God cannot suffer or be harmed leads naturally to objections like this one from Lincoln: God can be hurt. In fact Christianity is based off the fact that God can not only be hurt, … What God Cannot Do – Part 6

There is a common worry particularly among right-wingers, both religious and secular—that secular postindustrial populations are aging and reproducing below the replacement level. This, apparently, is going to lead to all sorts of disasters (doomed social insurance systems etc.), or, alternatively, is symptomatic of cultural disaster (a society in demographic decline has lost the will … Demographic implosion