I believe you have a mind of your own. I believe a bottle of water can only spinning in one direction at any give time. I believe a bottle of water cannot be full and empty at the same time. I believe that an unsupported bottle of water falls. These beliefs I hold implicitly without cognitive reflection. These beliefs spontaneously develop without special cultural … [Read more...]
On Behalf of Demea: Hume’s Problem of Evil
“Epicurus’ old questions are yet unanswered.” Said Philo, David Hume’s skeptical character, in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779). “Is he [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”(D 10.25) In part 10 and 11 of the Dialogues, Hume explored the … [Read more...]
Book Review: Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One
“Creations' debate game changer” is my four words review of John H. Walton’s 192-paged InterVarsity Press published book The Lost World of Genesis One (2009). Noting that the Old Testament was not written to us but for us, Walton returns us to the lost and forgotten ancient Jews to whom the Testament was written. He thus invites us to decipher ancient Near East cosmology as … [Read more...]
Unnaturalness of Atheism
The idea that atheism ought be assumed by default is a chimera. Atheism cannot be assumed by default, it must be demonstrated. The belief that given the failure of theistic case for God, atheism ought be assumed does not only commit an appeal to ignorance but is also against the picture painted by modern discoveries in Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR). Several recent … [Read more...]
God, Love & Evil
The standard response to the traditional problem of pain and suffering, after Alvin Plantinga’s contributions1, is that there is a morally sufficient reason for a being that is God to permit or bring about instances of pain and suffering. If it is possible, not necessarily true nor believed by (a)theists, that a being that is omnicompetent has a morally sufficient reason to … [Read more...]
Dissecting ‘One God Less’ Meme
“I contend we are both atheists,” signed Stephen F. Roberts, “I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” Roberts is believed1 to be the person who crystallized and popularized this increasing reechoed sound bite when he began signing his online post with it in … [Read more...]
Nietzsche and Two Unpleasant Implications of Darwinism
“There was a type of enjoyment in overpowering and interpreting the world in the manner of Plato,” contended Friedrich Nietzsche, “different from the enjoyment offered by today’s physicists, or by the Darwinians and anti-teleologists who work in physiology, with their principle of the ‘smallest possible force’ and greatest possible stupidity”(Nietzsche 2002, 15-16) Nietzsche’s … [Read more...]
David Hume’s Genuine Theism
“All the new discoveries in astronomy,” explained David Hume quo Philo, “which prove the immense grandeur and magnificence of the works of Nature, are so many additional arguments for a Deity, according to the true system of Theism.” (DNR 165) Superstition, following Hume, ravishes from us the “presents of God and Nature”. Liberation from the slavery of the grossest … [Read more...]
Sensus Divinitatis
“Is there any human being who has not entered on the first day of his life with an idea of that Great Head?” rhetorically inquired Arnobius of Sicca. Arnobius further inquired: “In whom has it not been implanted by nature, on whom has it not been impressed, aye, stamped almost in his mother’s womb even, in whom is there not a native instinct, that He is King and Lord, the ruler … [Read more...]
Epicurean Paradox (Mis)understood
A great amount of ink is being spilled on the so called the problem of evil. Without doubt the problem of pain and suffering is the most essential, and probably the most influential, case against the providence of a benevolent God in mankind's world. The burden of proof, in this article, is to show that the classical problem of pain and suffering should not be understood as a … [Read more...]