News Bits
Vox’s 5th letter to me is up.
My debate with Tom Gilson of Thinking Christian is rip-roarin’ over here.
Bradley Monton wrote a review of Greg Dawes’ Theism and Explanation (my #2 best atheist book of the decade).
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Thanks for the link to the review of Theism and Explanation Luke! I’d been looking for a professional review of it.
You’re right, it’s such an important book! Roman
Do you know if Dawes is an atheist or a theist? In your Philosophers of Religion post you list him as an atheist but Monton suggests he may be a theist. Bradm
In his interview with Luke, Dawes states pretty unambiguously that he is an atheist. John D
Greg is an atheist. That Morton mistakes him for a theist just means that Dawes is very good at writing about these matters fairly. lukeprog
Luke,
In your debate with Tom, you state that “Most humans have an inner sensation that objective moral values exist.” Have you read the post over at _Experimental Philosophy_ that challenges this assumption. Here it is:
http://experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com/experimental_philosophy/2009/10/are-people-actually-moral-objectivists.html Anonymous
Anonymous,
Thanks for the link. Yes, I am very excited that experimentalists are finally trying to answer questions that meta-ethicists have had for a century. The question is also the subject of Finlay’s paper ‘The Error in the Error Theory’, which I summarize here. lukeprog
I’m actually quite pleased to see that the letters between Luke and Vox are finally starting to make some progress. VD still strikes me as a snob, but I suppose his tone now is about as good as it’s going to get. I don’t quite agree with his definition for evil – the “pleasure” bit strikes me as odd – but I do like it better than Luke’s starting point of just plain ol’ suffering. It was a worthy start, though :)
For being such a “genius”, though, VD sure seems to use a lot of comma splices… Jeff H
Do you know what a comma splice is? MattC
Interesting where Tom is going in Letter 6 with his “10 Points”. I think to be a Christian (in the evangelical sense) one would have to affirm them all. Without them, Original Sin doesn’t make sense. Chuck
Regarding your use of the term “contra-causal free will”.
By this do you mean that if we were to stop time and “rewind the tape,” a person will always choose the same way because his “choice” is predetermined (I assume by some combination of genetics and experience)? Chuck
By “contra-causal free will” I refer to the supposed ability to create events that are not 100% determined by previous causes. lukeprog
Yes, I do. Do you?
“Apes do read theology, Luke, they just don’t understand it.”
“This is not an answer, this is just hope and hand-waving.”
“I did not declare “that the truth value of a proposition does not depend on the meaning of its terms”, I merely stated that given the context of the question, which your belief in any form of evil.”
“Meta-ethical philosopher Stephen Finlay’s belief in evil is of zero relevance here, it is only your belief that is relevant to this discussion.”
I used to get marks taken off for them all the time in English essays, so I learned to spot them readily. Anyway, I didn’t mean it as an earth-shattering revelation; I just found it interesting that someone who prides himself on his eloquent phrasing and large vocabulary would get tripped up over commas. Jeff H