A Tippling Philosopher

free will

Why Parenting Can Never Have a Rule Book: Children's Genetics Significantly Affect How They Are Parented

This is a fascinating article which will feed in to a post I will write about my own twins, and the power of genetics over behaviour, with its necessary mitigation of free will. From Science Daily:

determinism

Do you love your mother? Freely?

Another thing I wanted to add was the idea that the mental, the experiential, supervenes on the physical. This means that the physical in some way defines and is necessary for the mental. This is becoming more and more evident. Let me exemplify: How much do you love your mother?

BHA

Baroness Warsi gets her facts wrong about Britain, 'faith' and politics

From the British Humanist Association, by email: We were very disappointed last week by comments made by Baroness Warsi, the Minister for Faith and Communities. She addressed a gathering of students at Churchill College, Cambridge, and stated that the UK's coalition government was one of the most

morality

Can an 'is' be an 'ought'? Mike D on the science of morality.

Mike D's excellent blog The A-Unicornist has some real gems, and if only I had more time I would hang out there more often (I am trying to get a sidebar widget to link to offsite blogs). His latest post concerns the is/ought debate, especially dealing with Sam Harris/Richard Carrier and the great ph

determinism

Thoughts on free will

A new Tippling Philosopher has recently joined our group and come to the last few meetings. I was discussing free will with him in the pub, and he seemed to fail to understand how the Principle of Alternative Possibilities worked, and how the incoherence of free will seems insurmountable. Here is th

humour

Praise the Lord!

H/T Cyngus

infinity

Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly

Here is a post from James A. Lindsay's blog, reposted here because I have just edited and published his book through Onus Books. it has had really good reviews and we managed to get Victor Stenger to write a foreword for it:

Andreas Schueler

The 'my mum' argument against God

Quote of the Day from Andy Schueler: Oh, and I also like the "my mom" argument, which I just made up :-D

determinism

Dilbert does (the illusion of) free will

Dilbert doing philosophy. Good stuff! Particularly the last one!

empiricism

Post hoc rationalisation - reasoning our intuition and changing our minds

Post hoc rationalisation is what most of us end up doing when we reason. We have a gut instinct, a potentially irrational or a-rational decision based on the underlying cognitive faculties connected to our whole personhood, physical reactions and gut instincts.

empiricism

Faith vs rational evidence (and David Marshall)

Here is an old post from DC which John Loftus posted, taken from a then ongoing debate with David Marshall about what faith is. It recently came up in a conversation involving labreuer and David himself. Let me know if it still holds: David Part of the problem is that you are extracting these is

climate change

Must watch: Philippines speech moves COP19 plenary to tears

The Philippines chief negotiator, Yeb Sano, opened the UN climate talks with an impassioned plea for urgent action, and announcing a hunger strike in solidarity for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan.

art

"Sin" in colour

Beautiful:

determinism

Psychology, neuroscience and a fundamental lack of free will

I am presently reading an absolutely superb book by David Eagleman called Incognito: The book is a popular foray into psychology and neuroscience and synthesises a host of different studies into things brain. I wanted to just bring up a few fascinating studies which cast doubt upon the idea t

Featured ATP

Slaughter of the innocents

Surely both, that the star appeared and the wise men knew to follow it to find the baby Jesus, was a miracle. Can there be any doubt? So why did it lead them to Jerusalem, the wrong town -- and much worse -- to Herod, who only became aware of His rival after the wise men inquired about the new born

Cosmology

Heaven and the Fine-Tuning Argument

I came across this quote in response to someone posting my notes on fine-tuning on the Why Doesn't God Heal Amputees forum. I like it a lot: The biggest problem I find with the fine-tuned argument is that it is incompatible with dualism, and therefore Christianity.

John W. Loftus

Book description for "Christianity is Not Great" which features a chapter from me

John Loftus' new book features a chapter from yours truly. Here is the description he has in place for the forthcoming anthology: For the chapter titles and authors see here. Now for the description: This anthology focuses on the harms of Christian faith that best explain why atheists argue

Big Bang

Earth Has No Special Place in Expanding Universe

In a new study, Dartmouth researchers rule out a controversial theory that the accelerating expansion of the universe is an illusion.

Christopher Hitchens

Today's Hitchslap...

And while we're on You Tube... http://youtu.be/23Qpw54ylGc BOOM! Oh, and while you're at it, go to 2 minutes into this: http://youtu.be/9HG0yH6Jtp0

Islam

Maher on liberals and Islam

H/T to the thinker: http://youtu.be/XA64SX_52m8   And Morgan and Maher on guns, gay rights and marijuans: http://youtu.be/izSx3sOHO-M and an interesting piece on FOX news: http://youtu.be/j0aEjKhqu00

Politics

F*^k me, he's good

Say what you like about Brand, when he gets going, there ain't no stopping him. (Rather unspecified) Revolution! http://youtu.be/lLYcn3PuTTk

Religion

SCIENCE AND RELIGION: 5 QUESTIONS

Author Gregg Caruso, who has written some really useful academic books on free will has a new project ont he go which looks fascinating. Check it out. Here is the email he sent me:

extremism

Islam or Islamaphobia?

Watch the above video. (Then watch it again.) And then read the (unedited and uncorrected) description of this footage written by the organizers of this Muslim “peace conference”:

Adam and Eve

The Immorality of the Atonement - The Idea that God Wants Blood

Here is another piece, this time on the atonement and sin, from a friend who supplies adverts and what have you to the Free Inquiry magazine amongst others. He has a special interest in the fascinating life of Robert Ingersoll.

atheism

A true hymn - a reminder of how good this is

Frank Turner is an alternative folk musician who is fairly famous over here in the UK. If you want to read a cracking interview with him, I interviewed him about a year ago on his politics and religion.