I want to begin by clarifying that I am not raising a constitutional or legal question at all. Let’s assume that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) have the constitutional right to associate or not associate with whoever they wish. I’m coming at this from a very different angle. Again, I’m stipulating that the BSA … Where is the Outcry from Theists Against the BSA’s Reason for Its Policy of Discrimination against Nontheists?

Victor Reppert and I have been having a productive and healthy exchange about the tone of theist-atheist discourse. If you haven’t already seen it, I encourage you to read his latest post on the topic. Disclosure Before commenting on his post, I want to provide a sort of “disclosure” statement about biases, similar to what … Theist-Atheist Discourse: Some Thoughts on Victor Reppert’s Post

According to Greta Christina, atheists concede the ground of death too easily. She quotes or paraphrases the following sentiment. “Sure, atheism may have better arguments and evidence. But religion is always to going to win on the death question. A secular philosophy of death will never comfort people the way religion does.” In response, she … Do Atheists Concede the Ground of Death Too Easily? A Reply to Greta Christina

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2012/05/by-way-of-clarification-atheism-and.html

Victor Reppert links to an article at the Catholic League website entitled, “Atheist Rally Draws Haters.” Reppert writes: OK, as Ricky Ricardo would say, splain. Explain to me the difference between this and a KKK rally, other than the fact that, primarily, Christians were the targets, as opposed to Blacks and Jews. Because I have … Are Reason Rallies Analogous to KKK Rallies?

I’m fortunate to often run into students whose interests in physics go beyond what they encounter in class, and who might even develop their interests in philosophical directions. Anyway, one of my previous students has apparently been taking the ambitions of physics to describe everything very seriously, and has been worrying about the classic free … Compatibilism

On his blog, R. Joseph Hoffmann published an essay by Stephanie Louise Fisher which, among other things, argues that Bayes’s theorem (hereafter, BT) is irrelevant to historical scholarship. In her words, BT is “completely inappropriate for, and unrelated to historical occurrence and therefore irrelevant for application to historical texts.” Really? Whenever a historian argues that such-and-such an … Is Bayes’s Theorem Irrelevant to History?

This was in the Manchester Guardian last February: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/12/new-anti-science-assault-us-schools Like movie monsters who keep getting killed but keep coming back for more (and more tedious) sequels, anti-science activism keeps rising from the crypt. No surprise here. This is truly the unending story. What does surprise me a bit is that it apparently took so long … The Unending Story

A poster put out by one of the Islamist political parties in Turkey. On top of the image of people turned to stone, with hints of Sodom and Gomorrah, the slogans are “Criminalize adultery” and “Homosexuality is immorality.” They may eventually get their way as well. There’s considerable public support for enforcing religious morality through … Criminalizing sex