Musings

Here are ruminations on various issues and concepts for which I felt the need to work out some resolution for myself.

Who's afraid of relativism?

A very commonly heard argument stumper is the question, "Why is there something instead of nothing?"

On the face of it, this mind bending question does appear to beg for a solution. But does it really make sense?

One often hears claims that various religious scriptures contain accurate scientific statements. Really?

With the disappearance of communism as a viable economic model, the decades old prominence of the debate around capitalism vs. communism is entirely off the radar. But a much more ancient tension of world views has resurfaced with surprising vigour and filled the void. It seems people are never content with a world devoid of some antagonism and the one around religion vs. secularism has surged to the fore with a vengeance. One would be hard put not to stumble incessantly upon some article, book, public debate, blog, or website that did not expound on some aspect of this hotly contested issue. The points of contention are legion. There are disputes about the truth of evolution, the connection of religion and morality, the possibility of miracles, the existence of the soul, which side has committed more evils, can life have a purpose without religion, and so on without end. I contend that there is really only one central question worth considering; does God exist? Until that issue is resolved, it is premature to wrestle with the other incidentals.

Here then follow some thoughts regarding the existence of God.

The philosopher Richard Swinburne feels that the probability that God exists is greater than 50/50. I beg to disagree...

...continue reading at The Secular Web

The philosopher René Descartes famously pondered the question of the possibility of God's deceit. If God was deceitful, we as his creations could never trust anything we contemplate or perceive; it may simply be a deceitful, omnipotent God directly warping our faculties or, as our creator, deliberately constructing us with faulty, unreliable faculties to start with. To dodge this disturbing possibility, Descartes argued that God, a perfect being, could not be deceitful because deceit is a fault, an imperfection. This simple stratagem appeared to satisfy Descartes. But was Descartes on to something more insidious and unthinkable than he was willing to contemplate; was he too hasty in sweeping this concern under the rug?

...continue reading at The Secular Web

Arguments claiming to demonstrate the existence of God come in many varieties and levels of sophistication. Not surprisingly, the theist believes these arguments are clear demonstrations which underwrite a life devoted to worship, while the atheist, in contrast, skeptically begs to disagree. How is it that the soundness of the same argument is judged so differently? By what reasonable standard may these arguments be judged to be successful or not? This article examines this issue and makes the case that the stringency of the standard must be commensurate with the immediate and patent costs of getting it wrong.

Is there such a thing as "free will"? Does the concept even make sense and could we get along just fine without it?

Does software suck? Judge for yourself.

Check out some book reviews of a more general nature.