Ethics and Morality

A collection of 146 posts

COVID crisis

One More Time, God Loves Abortion!

God Loves Abortion! Or it is necessary for foetuses to die for a greater good. Well that's certainly one of the conclusions that must come from the statistics for natural, spontaneous abortions, or miscarriages; abortions that God has the power to stop, and seemingly designed in to the system in th

Debate

My Debate on Morality and God with Peter S. Williams (and Others)

Here is a reminder of a debate I had on morality and God some time back at the University of Southampton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3kARrL7TW4 Let me know what you think. I was invited to University of Southampton by their Athiest Society to do a team debate

Deep Dive

I'd Rather Be a Regressive Leftist or an SJW than Someone Using them Pejoratively

My blogging colleague her at Patheos Nonreligious, Dan Arel, said this on Facebook the other day that piqued my interest: I'd much rather be called a regressive leftist or an SJW, you know, people who actually fight for things to be better, than be mistaken for those who

Debate

Kagan vs Craig: Still Quality

This is still a fantastic debate, primarily because of the format. After 40 minutes, they sit down and thrash it out, mano a mano. And Craig ain't so assured when it comes to actually discussing things on the fly. Do you need God for morality? In case you

Philosophical Argument Against God

Stephen Law's Evil God Challenge

Philosopher Stephen Law contacted me today to alert me to his argument (of which many of you are no doubt aware) being available in video format. Check it out! It concerns the problem of evil and the creation of theodicies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiufsmxiUiU

Deep Dive

Christian Apologist Matt Flannagan Weighs in here at ATP on Divine Command Theory

Christian apologist Matthew Flannagan recently weighed in several times on a post I recently created for Divine Command Theory. I am super busy at the moment, trying to finish up my book on the Kalam, as well as another project that I will soon be announcing, so if anyone has

consequentialism

16 Problems with Divine Command Theory

Divine Command Theory, or DCT, is the most prominent ethical framework adopted by religious thinkers in modern times. The idea for them is that it gets them an objective grounding for morality. DCT says that whatever God commands is necessarily good because God commands it, and this is based on

catholicism

Confession and Unknown Sins - Guest Post by Geoff Benson

Thanks to Geoff Benson, regular reader and all-round legend here, for putting his thoughts into words for this piece: The issue of sin, and sinning, has been covered many times, and I'm sure will continue to be. I think it's safe to say that as regards

morality

Come to my Talk on Morality next Week

I am speaking to Dorset Humanists on Wednesday, next week, on the topic of morality. The details are on the attached poster. Come along if you can:

consequentialism

William Lane Craig - Taking to Task his Claim "Consequentialism is a terrible ethic"

Watch this, especially from 1:28:30. Craig was involved in a series of discussions in Australia with Laurence Krauss regarding philosophy and science. Unfortunately, Krauss is no great philosopher, and philosophy is what most of this discussion revolved around. However, both Craig and the annoying moderator claimed that "

morality

This should really challenge your eating habits

I have been having an ongoing conversation on the blog with "Philosophical Vegan" about an old piece I wrote and the philosophical underpinnings of eating meat or being a vegetarian or vegan. The conversation is still unfinished, but it is pretty apparent that it is hard to ethically

morality

Replying to Philosophical Vegan Concerning Veganism and Vegetarianism (part 2)

I have been exceptionally busy and am somewhat behind on this project. Let me pull on what I said in the previous piece: This is the second part of my long promised reply to Philosophical Vegan (PV). It is not really a rebuttal because, essentially, I agree with much of

Crime & Punishment

Should We License Parenting?

In reading the brilliant book The Anatomy of Violence by Adrian Raine, the subject of licensing parenting is brought up near the end. It's a good old debating topic that often provokes strong opinions. Some claim that giving birth is a fundamental human right and everyone is entitled

Biblical Exegesis

Bible Slavery - it's all about CONTEXT!!

Having seen theist after theist squirm and perform mental gymnastics in order to make sense of the countenancing of slavery within the Bible, it's about time Nonstampcollector produced a knockdown video on this subject.

veganism

Replying to Philosophical Vegan Concerning Veganism and Vegetarianism (part 1)

This is the first part of my long promised reply to Philosophical Vegan (PV). It is not really a rebuttal because, essentially, I agree with much of what he says. This may come as a surprise and shame to my meat-eating readers. I have not shied away from admitting, as

hell

Jesus' Heaven: Scaring You out of Hell

Jesus is supposed to be the great moral teacher: God incarnate, preaching moral perfection, or preaching morality perfectly. However, more often than not, this teaching involves scaring people with notions of what will happen to them if they don't choose wisely. Or, his teaching basically involves threatening you.

consequentialism

Vegetarians and vegans - a philosophical look into whether they can rightfully adopt a moral high-ground.

I wrote this years back and have not looked at it since. A few week ago, I was approached by "Philosophical Vegan" (PV) who told me that when you search for veganism an philosophy on Google, my essay is one of the first search results. That's

atheism

Heaven & Hell Stop You From Genuinely Morally Evaluating

Morality is a tricky subject that remains unsolved as a philosophical puzzle. One issue that is pertinent for Christians is how heaven and hell play, psychologically speaking, with any moral evaluation, and thus with any moral action. Indeed, there was a chapter I once read somewhere (but I cannot remember

Biblical Exegesis

Harmonising Jesus With Yahweh. Fail.

Harmonising the Old Testament with the New Testament is a tough job. And don't go trying to use Paul to do that job. Circumcision and genocide are slightly different.

bible

Jehovah's Jihad: Christians Abhor the Qu'ran, Ignore Biblical Atrocities

The Bible contains Jehovah's jihads and is more violent than the Qu'ran.

consequentialism

God Is A Moral Consequentialist!!

Here is an essay that I wrote some time ago, raising points that William Lane Craig has failed to deal with. This one comes up an awful lot in my discussions on morality. See what you think. See this and other such pieces in my reasonably priced ebook: The Problem

Catholic sex abuse scandal

Hundreds of child sex abuse complaints made against Christian Brothers

The Royal Commission has their work cut out for them in investigating historic sex abuse from clergy and religious institutions in Australia over previous decades. As the Guardian reports: In Australia, 853 people have made a claim or substantiated complaint of child sexual abuse against one or more Christian Brothers,

morality

Oughts and morality

In this old video I set out that intrinsic moral duties are incoherent. That is to say oughts are dependent on conditional statements. If I want my car to run well, then I ought to change the oil. But is that universally the case? Without succeeding in satisfying the conditional

Debate

"Is God Required for Morality?" - my debate vs Peter S. Williams

I was recently invited to Southampton University by their Athiest Society to do a team debate against Christian philosopher Peter S. Williams, together with third year philosophy student Miriam Animashaun. I was teamed up with Boaz Dicks, a second year philosophy student. Many thanks to him and apologies, as I

Debate

"Is God Required for Morality?" Debate vs Peter S. Williams this Thursday

I will be debating Christian philosopher Peter S. Williams at Southampton University this Thursday night, the title being "Is God Required for Morality?" Peter is actually a friend of mine from the early days of The Tippling Philosophers. He is a published philosopher (I have critiqued one of