I would say that theists have a hard time dealing with randomness, but that would be misleading. Quite a few nonbelievers also dislike randomness. Randomness offends against the intuition that everything has a cause, whether this eventually means supernatural ultimate causes or a universe where every event has a natural cause. Still, religious thinkers seem … Random thoughts

It’s easy to suspect that characteristically philosophical questions are irresolvable. And not just in the sense that there are no final and incontestable answers, but in the sense that you can’t even make progress on them. The main reason to suspect this is that philosophers don’t in fact seem able to resolve their disputes. (You … Creationist scientists

The major intellectual sin of science is that it can get boring. Let’s face it, most of us bang away at research that might be useful, even important for others in our subsubdiscipline, but it’s hardly a big deal. (Do you want me to talk about the effects of stratospheric relaxation in radiative forcing calculations? … Divine Action and Natural Selection

In the last couple of years, I have been hearing a lot more about creationism in Europe, particularly Britain. A recent poll apparently has that among the British, “More than half of the public believe that the theory of evolution cannot explain the full complexity of life on Earth, and a ‘designer’ must have lent … British Creationism

On his Dangerous Idea blog, Vic Reppert asks for comments on who won the famous debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston, S.J. on the existence of God, broadcast by the B.B.C. in 1948. I recently commented on this debate in the chapter “Bertrand Russell” in Icons of Unbelief, edited by S.T. Joshi and recently … Russell vs. Copleston on the Moral Argument

It seems to me that selection of a moral point of view is similar to selection of a car to buy. There is no such thing as “the right car to buy”, although there are probably lots of “the wrong cars to buy.” Selection of a car is neither a purely subjective matter, nor is … Objectivity and Moral Viewpoints

Johann Hari has an opinion piece in The Independent, “Why should I respect these oppressive religions?”. I don’t seriously disagree with anything in it. But then, maybe that is precisely the problem. I live and work in an academic environment, where I take free discussion for granted. I’m a fully paid-up member of the Argumentative … UN vs free speech again

Taner is going to love this one. I’ve made a short list of some of the stupidest things philosophers have said over the millennia. Each of these claims has been seriously maintained by one or more major philosophers (in parentheses). Each is not only false, but obviously so. As the late philosophical iconoclast and maverick … Stupid Philosopher Tricks

Jerry Coyne, the evolutionary biologist, has a very good book review article on science and religion, “Seeing and Believing,” in The New Republic.

Our moral lives are rooted in our interests and our agreements. If we want to explain our moral lives, from gut-level moral perceptions to moral discourse intended to persuade others and ourselves, we need not go beyond very thisworldly interests and agreements. Hence morality is, broadly speaking, politics. If morality is politics, it is ugly. … A cynic’s definition of morality