All entries by this author

Bobby Jindal the Exorcist *

Mar 1st, 2009 | Filed by

Hey, he’s governor of Louisiana, a state full of charismatic Christians and religious hysterics.… Read the rest



A little warning

Mar 1st, 2009 11:49 am | By

Jeremy is going to move B&W to a different server this week (now you know why we needed the extra cache, just to make triply sure), so B&W may disappear for a day or two. Now you know this so you won’t turn pale and faint if it happens.… Read the rest



A little note from God

Feb 28th, 2009 5:59 pm | By

I jumped into the argument with Nicholas Beale, and – like several other people there, ended up surprised and a little shocked at his evasiveness, or shiftiness as Eric called it. NB said on Thursday about the putative Loving Ultimate Creator:

If a LUC exists then (s)he is unlikely to be incompetent and will therefore have some communication with the people (s)he loves. So if (s)he exists it’s reasonable to suspect that at least one of the major religions has a substantial core of truth.

I pointed out that the LUC hadn’t communicated with me, for one. He replied:

of course God communicates with you. But he doesn’t force you to listen or respond. That is freedom – and

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Recruiting for Jesus Camp *

Feb 28th, 2009 | Filed by

Church sends ‘youth leaders’ into schools to flatter children into attending meetings.… Read the rest



David Colquhoun on the Opposite of Science *

Feb 28th, 2009 | Filed by

As soon as you apply science to homeopathy or naturopathy, the whole subject vanishes in a puff of smoke.… Read the rest



Williamson ‘Apologizes’ But Not Really *

Feb 28th, 2009 | Filed by

‘The one thing he doesn’t say, and the main thing, is that the Holocaust occurred, that it is not a lie.’… Read the rest



Amartya Sen on the UDHR *

Feb 28th, 2009 | Filed by

The UD took the firm view that human rights do not depend on legislation for recognition. … Read the rest



US Joins Canada in Boycotting Durban II *

Feb 28th, 2009 | Filed by

Proposed drafts include assaults on free speech under the guise of defending religions from ‘defamation.’… Read the rest



Obama Admin Says No to Durban II *

Feb 28th, 2009 | Filed by

The document being negotiated has gone from bad to worse, and the current text is not salvageable.… Read the rest



The priority of morality to law

Feb 28th, 2009 11:42 am | By

Amartya Sen considers the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[T]he Declaration took the firm view that human rights do not depend on legislation for recognition. People have these rights simply by virtue of being human. The contention here was that the acknowledgment of a human right is best seen not as a putative legal instrument, but as an important ethical demand–a demand that everyone should have certain freedoms irrespective of citizenship, nationality, and location. Such a recognition would lead to fresh legislation rather than await it. The Declaration championed the priority of morality to law.

That’s useful – the idea that the acknowledgment of a human right should be seen as an important ethical demand rather … Read the rest



Jesus and Mo on the Westboro Baptist Church *

Feb 27th, 2009 | Filed by

They’re right, but they’re so tacky.… Read the rest



Our strong intuition

Feb 26th, 2009 12:37 pm | By

What is ‘God’? Nicholas Beale offers one answer:

On the loving bit, philosophically I’m inclined to offer “Loving Ultimate Creator” as a defintion of God. That is clearly fundamental to Christianity and I think broadly consonant with Islam & Judaism. It offers a philosophical explanations for Anthropic Fine-tuning the intelligibility of the universe, the existence of objective morality and beauty, and our strong intuition that love is the most important and fundamental aspect of the universe.

Whose strong intuition that love is the most important and fundamental aspect of the universe? Who is the we in that ‘our’? Beale and Polkinghorne? Theists? Human beings in general?

I don’t know, but I know I have no such intuition. My intuition … Read the rest



Philosophy’s Great Experiment *

Feb 26th, 2009 | Filed by

X-phi wants to kick down the walls of recent philosophy and place experimentation back at its centre. … Read the rest



Baggini on Polkinghorne on Science and Religion *

Feb 26th, 2009 | Filed by

Polkinghorne and Beale often use God to plug the spaces left by science’s incompleteness.… Read the rest



Michael Ignatieff: an Intellectual in Politics *

Feb 26th, 2009 | Filed by

How does a liberal intellectual face up to the dilemmas of liberalism during a war on terror?… Read the rest



Nigel Warburton on God and the Buses *

Feb 26th, 2009 | Filed by

There probably isn’t, there definitely is; the epistemology of advertising.… Read the rest



Questions of Truth *

Feb 26th, 2009 | Filed by

The god of the gaps was grandfathered in; discuss.… Read the rest



Looking at pictures

Feb 26th, 2009 11:58 am | By

There are no atheists in CAT scanners – or are there.

Katja Wiech is a cheerful young German researcher who is fascinated by pain. She’s discovered many things—for example, when devout Catholics are given electric shocks while looking at a picture of the Virgin Mary they feel less pain than atheists do when administered the same unpleasant treatment.

Mary; that’s interesting. Not Jesus, not God. (Showing people pictures of God is a little tricky of course. There are a few – that Michelangelo one of course, where God and Adam attempt to do a fist bump, and some medieval ones where God wears a mitre and looks eminently unSpiritual – but not so many that there’s a stock visual ‘God’ … Read the rest



Carl Zimmer Fact-checks George Will *

Feb 25th, 2009 | Filed by

The fact-checker doesn’t rely on press releases or blog posts, but calls scientists up to get the best information.… Read the rest



Darwin Was Agnostic and Nontheist and Antitheist *

Feb 25th, 2009 | Filed by

Rick Weiss and Matt Nisbet are using a misrepresentation of Darwin to make a case against New Atheists.… Read the rest