I recently watched an excellent interview-style debate between professional philosophers over the objectivity (or lack thereof) of moral propositions such as “Murder is wrong.” The program, “No Dogs or Philosophers Allowed,” discussed the issue in an episode titled “Beyond Morality,” named after a book by one of the guests, Richard Garner out of Ohio State … From Keith Augustine: There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so

Chris Carter has recently posted an article challenging the idea that consciousness depends (for its very existence) on the brain. I’ve read it carefully and am underwhelmed. I have two general comments. First, though Carter summarizes the evidence for mind-brain dependence well in the beginning, he has merely asserted–and comes nowhere near demonstrating–that William James’ … From Keith Augustine: Does Consciousness Depend on the Brain?

ReligionFacts.com has a chart on their site, “The Big Religion Chart,” summarizing the major “religions / sects / groups / philosophies / belief systems.” Atheism is included in the chart and is listed as having 1.1 billion adherents worldwide. I’m virtually certain that this number is wildly overstated. The only way they can come up … Number of Atheists Worldwide

In my last post on the subject I introduced Advaita Vedanta (Hindu) ontology and the three categories of reality: necessary existence (sat), impossible existence (asat), and world-appearance (mithya). So where does God fit into this ontology? The Western concept of God is not something that can be projected onto the Vedanta system. For now, forget … Vedanta Philosophy – Part 2

There’s a little kerfuffle in the blogosphere recently about Dawkins. No, not the Haggard video. As the LifeSite story reports, and several fringe abortion blogs have picked up and elaborated, Dawkins “advocates eugenics” and “says Nazi regime’s genocidal project ‘may not be bad’”. The article goes on to quote other geneticists in a negative fashion … Dawkins Supports Genocide?

Over time I’d like to say a few things about important points in Vedanta (Hindu) philosophy. This is a neglected area not just among Western philosophers of religion but also among nonbelievers who are naturally curious and interested in what other religions have to say. And hopefully it will be something a little different and … Vedanta Philosophy

I’ve only skimmed this article, but I’m linking to it for others who might be interested. (Thanks to Charles Echelbarger for tipping me off to this.) LINK

LINK This blog is described as being “Dedicated to fair exposition and critique of Christianity and Christian apologetics.” The anonymous author provides the following profile: “I’m currently in the late stages of a PhD program in Philosophy. I was a Christian and an “apologetics nerd” for 15 years, but deconverted at the end of 2005. … New Blog: the Ex-Apologist

I recently mentioned Gene Witmer’s critique of presuppositionalism in an earlier post. Presuppositional apologist Gene Cook has also taken notice of Witmer’s critique. The two discussed the issues on Cook’s podcast.

Here is the description of the video as provided at YouTube: “Jon Stewart analyzes the latest gay surprise as the evangelical, gay-bashing preacher, Pastor Ted, gets caught with his three-year gay lover and supplier of crystal meth. What else is new? For an added bit of spice, there is an earlier clip of Haggard lecturing … John Stewart and Richard Dawkins on Ted Haggard