...is out, and includes my submission Does Grounding Moral Truth in God’s Nature Violate Hume’s Is-Ought? Thanks, Nick :) Submit to the next carnival here. . … [Read more...]
Deep Hunger and Dark Games
I'm a big fan of honesty in fiction. I don't want cookie-cutter personalities, saccharine love, or shallow stereotypes. I want the author to convince me to cheer for heroes and against villains - and I want to know why the heroes and villains are worthy of the label. I want grit and beauty, despair and hope, love and loss. If a story tells me what the world is like, I … [Read more...]
Does grounding moral truth in God’s nature violate Hume’s is-ought?
The short answer is, no, only if you try to justify that truth by referring back to God’s nature. Here is the long answer. It is possible to blend Hume’s is-ought distinction in Ethics with Plato’s justified-true-belief theory of knowledge. A catchy name for it is the Ought-Is-Belief theory of knowledge, moral or otherwise. … [Read more...]
How To Fix Society According To Atheists
Yet another tactic that I see atheists use against God and religion, is visualized in the picture above (You'll have to click on it a few times to read it) This picture is apparently trying to convey that the quality of life in these societies is better because they're some of the least religious countries in the world. Such reasoning is quite problematic however, for various … [Read more...]
Responses to Challenges from the New Atheists and 'Nones'
Over the last few months, I have been posting responses to some of the challenges coming from the (new) atheists and the "Nones" (those who profess no religious affiliation or faith). What I have done here is provided you with a listing of those responses from the Real Issue blog, so that you have a collection of them for your reference. By no means is this an exhaustive … [Read more...]
Debating tips for atheists
Free thought blogger and atheist activist JT Eberhard has given a talk several times this year about why the arguments for the existence of God fail. During the talk, Eberhard discusses his year-long experiment of attending church and asking Christians why they believe in God. The lecture is designed to give atheists an outline of how to dialogue with believers and deconvert … [Read more...]
Atheists Are People, Too!
Richard Dawkins, Richard Carrier, Barry McGowan, Christopher Hitchens, Bertrand Russell, Madalyn Murray O'Hair -- they all had one thing in common -- they are or were people. They also happen to be or were well-known atheists. I was quite taken with Madalyn Murray O'Hair at one time. I never met her, but had the opportunity to talk with her more than 40 years ago when she was … [Read more...]
Is Christianity Arrogant?
Recently I was at a barbecue where I talked with a woman who had many questions about Christianity. Like many of us, there were things she did not understand or agree with. As we were talking, the topic of Christianity's arrogance came up. How can Christians claim that their religion is the only true one? This seems like the height of presumption considering the many religions … [Read more...]
Moral Relativism and Two "Ten Commandments"
Does moral relativism make sense? Are all ethical theories equally good and deserving of our respect? Can a moral code be wrong? Should we always tolerate people and cultures who have different moral standards than we do? One way of examining these questions is to compare two very different versions of the Ten Commandments. We will look at Richard Dawkins’ version and then … [Read more...]