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Tag Archives: Richard Dawkins
From His Book, “Unweaving the Rainbow”
This is terrific. Richard Dawkins on death. And life.
Richard Dawkins v. William Lane Craig (and Daniel Dennett?)
William Lane Craig is a smart guy, and I learn a great deal whenever I read him. He makes me think. I don’t agree with him on a lot of things (most obviously, the veracity of Christianity), but he’s a … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, Daniel Dennett, God, philosophy, Richard Dawkins, william lane craig
4 Comments
Definition and Origin of the Phrase “The Whole Nine Yards”
Blaise Pascal once wrote someone the following: “I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” Today we might say that Pascal gave his reader, not the short version of his thought, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Charles Darwin, evolution, language, memes, Richard Dawkins, words
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Camille Paglia on the New Atheism and Contemporary Humanism
In an interview posted at Salon today, Camille Paglia lets loose on godless chic, arguing that it has poisoned contemporary film and art: People in the humanities have sunk into this shallow, snobby, liberal style of stereotyping religious believers as … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged art, atheism, atheist, books, Buddha, Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, humanism, Jesus, religion, Richard Dawkins, samsara
29 Comments
Choosing Atheism Or Theism Is An Act Of Imagination
The universe appears to be lacking in purpose in some ways, but not in others. For example, the Holocaust and the panda’s “thumb” would seem to suggest that we live in a historically contingent universe indifferent and blind to both suffering and … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, faith, God, imagination, Jesus, Nietzsche, Richard Dawkins, theism
4 Comments
Atheism, Theism, and Improbable Videos
___________ There seems to be a whole genre of YouTube videos devoted to “just-so” events (as with the one above), and they’re rather nice metaphors of the theist vs. atheist divide. Theists, of course, posit that the universe’s improbable properties … Continue reading
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Tagged atheist, evolution, God, multiverse, Richard Dawkins, theist
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Richard Dawkins’ Atheist Reason Rally on the Mall in Washington, D.C., March 24th, 2012: Edward Feser Doesn’t Like It
Edward Feser, a Catholic philosopher living in California who has written some really high quality academic books, offers at his blog the following reason for why he thinks the atheist Reason Rally this weekend will prove to be a ridiculous, … Continue reading
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Tagged America, atheism, atheist, edward feser, faith, Jesus, reason rally, Richard Dawkins, the Enlightenment
23 Comments
Jerry Coyne: Free Will Is Also A Delusion
It’s not just God that’s a delusion. Free will is also. And our language should change to reflect it. That, at any rate, is University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne’s opinion. Here’s his recommendation, from his blog today, of what … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, Ayn Rand, Calvinism, determinism, existentialism, feminism, free will, freedom, God, jerry coyne, Jesus, Richard Dawkins
1 Comment
Richard Dawkins Won’t Debate William Lane Craig Because Craig Rationalizes Genocide
Though I’d like to see Richard Dawkins debate William Lane Craig, I actually think that Dawkins has given a good reason for not debating him, highlighting the following passage from Craig’s writings in which Craig rationalizes genocide: I have come to appreciate … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, Canaanites, genocide, isreal, jerry coyne, Jesus, Richard Dawkins, the Holocaust, william lane craig
10 Comments
Follow the Entropy: A Pretty Good Argument for God’s Existence
The apparent fine-tuning of the cosmos’s physical constants is an unusually strong argument for God’s existence. Below, I’ll set out the argument very concisely, try to make a plausible case for it, and see if anybody in the comboxes comes around … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, entropy, faith, God, jerry coyne, philosophy, physics, reason, Richard Dawkins, science
15 Comments
At New Scientist, Amanda Gefter Keeps the God Hypothesis in Play
A recent article at New Scientist titled “Existence: Why is there a universe?” by Amanda Gefter concludes rather inconclusively, implying that the God hypothesis cannot be removed from the intellectual table: Our understanding of creation relies on the validity of the laws of … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, Catholicism, God, jerry coyne, Jesus, philosophy, Richard Dawkins, thomism
2 Comments
Is Richard Dawkins Afraid to Debate William Lane Craig?
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, Christianity, God, Jesus, philosophy, Richard Dawkins, science, william lane craig
14 Comments
Burdens of Proof: Why I’m (Still) an Agnostic
Who has the burden of proof on the God question—atheists or theists? I say neither because, when you raise an existential question, the truth is the whole. Nobody gets a free ride or has a prior right to win an … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, atheist, God, jerry coyne, Jesus, ontology, philosophy, Richard Dawkins, science, the ontological mystery
44 Comments
Are Science and Poetry Compatable? Do We Want Them To Be?
It’s sometimes suggested that science and poetry are two ways of looking at the world that really don’t have many points of contact. But, curiously, below is one of the world’s greatest living literary critics, Helen Vendler of Harvard, explaining how her early training … Continue reading
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Tagged Daniel Dennett, deepities, helen vendler, poetry, religion, Richard Dawkins, science, the ontological mystery, william carlos williams
1 Comment
The Evolutionary Universe 1, Genesis Literalism 0
Question: Five days after the creation of the universe, were there whales? Answer: Obviously not. Why? Because the earth was not here five days after the universe began. And, for that matter, it was not here a billion years after the universe began. The earth … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, astronomy, atheism, atheist, Charles Darwin, creation, evolution, Genesis, jerry coyne, John Macarthur, Richard Dawkins, theology
2 Comments
Eugenics Revival Watch: What’s Richard Dawkins’s Position on Eugenics?
He wants an open discussion concerning the subject. Below is the full text of what he wrote as a contribution to the book, What is Your Dangerous Idea? (Simon & Schuster 2006). Richard Dawkins’s statement also appeared in the The Herald of Scotland in November … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, breeding, eugenics, God, horses, Jesus, Nietzsche, philosophy, Richard Dawkins, the future
21 Comments
Why Atheism is Not Just Disbelief in the Existence of Gods
Atheists typically assert that atheism is just disbelief in the existence of gods, and when they say this it is usually to insist that little, or even nothing, follows from this definition (or has ever followed from it). On this line … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, aristotle, atheism, atheist, definition, george santayana, Jesus, michael burleigh, philosophy, Richard Dawkins
5 Comments
Eugenics Revival Watch: Scientific American editor, Mariette DiChristina, calls eugenic goals expressed in 1911 “lofty aspirations”
Curiously, the editor at the Scientific American website (Mariette DiChristina) recently approved the posting, with only minimal comment, of an editorial written in its pages 100 years ago, in 1911, advocating eugenics. Here are three quotes from the editorial: It is not … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, biology, Darwin, eugenics, genetics, Hitler, jerry coyne, Nietzsche, Richard Dawkins, science, scientific american
5 Comments
Atheism’s Real Problem Going Forward: Universal Humanism vs. Johann Gottfried Herder, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Friedrich Nietzsche
The fact that we evolved from social primates, and not, say, loner sharks, is sufficient to account for human moral impulses. Aristotle famously defined us as the political (or social) animal. But being a tribal species in which demonized out-groups are … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, history, humanism, Johann Gottfried Herder, Machiavelli, moloch, Nietzsche, Richard Dawkins, the enlighenment, the future, Thomas Jefferson
30 Comments
Prometheus Unbound 