Tag Archives: Richard Dawkins

From His Book, “Unweaving the Rainbow”

Posted on February 8, 2015 by

This is terrific. Richard Dawkins on death. And life.

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Richard Dawkins v. William Lane Craig (and Daniel Dennett?)

Posted on July 2, 2013 by

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 →

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Definition and Origin of the Phrase “The Whole Nine Yards”

Posted on December 31, 2012 by

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 →

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Richard Dawkins and Memes

Posted on December 11, 2012 by

For being an early and vigorous defender of the theory of evolution by natural selection against its critics, 19th century biologist Julian Huxley became known as “Darwin’s bulldog.” In the late 20th and early 21st century, the sinewy and quick-witted … Continue reading →

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Camille Paglia on the New Atheism and Contemporary Humanism

Posted on October 10, 2012 by

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 →

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Choosing Atheism Or Theism Is An Act Of Imagination

Posted on June 7, 2012 by

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 →

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Atheism, Theism, and Improbable Videos

Posted on May 15, 2012 by

___________ 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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Richard Dawkins’ Atheist Reason Rally on the Mall in Washington, D.C., March 24th, 2012: Edward Feser Doesn’t Like It

Posted on March 22, 2012 by

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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Jerry Coyne: Free Will Is Also A Delusion

Posted on March 4, 2012 by

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 →

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Richard Dawkins Won’t Debate William Lane Craig Because Craig Rationalizes Genocide

Posted on October 20, 2011 by

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 →

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Follow the Entropy: A Pretty Good Argument for God’s Existence

Posted on August 6, 2011 by

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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At New Scientist, Amanda Gefter Keeps the God Hypothesis in Play

Posted on August 2, 2011 by

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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Is Richard Dawkins Afraid to Debate William Lane Craig?

Posted on July 21, 2011 by
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Burdens of Proof: Why I’m (Still) an Agnostic

Posted on July 12, 2011 by

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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Are Science and Poetry Compatable? Do We Want Them To Be?

Posted on June 27, 2011 by

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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The Evolutionary Universe 1, Genesis Literalism 0

Posted on June 15, 2011 by

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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Eugenics Revival Watch: What’s Richard Dawkins’s Position on Eugenics?

Posted on June 14, 2011 by

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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Why Atheism is Not Just Disbelief in the Existence of Gods

Posted on June 6, 2011 by

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 →

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Eugenics Revival Watch: Scientific American editor, Mariette DiChristina, calls eugenic goals expressed in 1911 “lofty aspirations”

Posted on May 31, 2011 by

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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Atheism’s Real Problem Going Forward: Universal Humanism vs. Johann Gottfried Herder, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted on May 28, 2011 by

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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