Category Archives: Ethics & Morality

Coherence of Naturalism

One of the fundamental “facts” about existence we all experience is that physics trumps sentience. As a consequence, physics trumps goodness, trumps morality.  A single example should suffice. When a murderer points his gun at a saint and pulls the … Continue reading

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Framing Free Will

When interactions occur between theists and atheists, our disparate frames of mind often cause confusion and misunderstanding. Behind these conflicting mindsets lie two incompatible worldviews: supernaturalism and naturalism. Understand these frameworks, and you will have a key to understanding our … Continue reading

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Moral Realism

I strongly recommend this post on moral realism by Geoff Sayre-McCord (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

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Are Atheism & Morality Compatible (part 2)

We ended part one with three barriers to postulating an  evolutionary source of human morality—obstacles which Henderson considers insurmountable. First, he claims that evolution is incapable of leading to the development of animals who are altruistically unselfish or compassionate. He … Continue reading

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Are Atheism & Morality Compatible? (part 1)

“Why There Is No Such Thing as a Good Atheist” That’s the title of a recent blog post by Pastor Rick Henderson on HuffingtonPost.com. Despite the provocative title, Henderson is sincerely trying to engage atheists in a constructive manner. The … Continue reading

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Torture and American Christianity

December 25, the holiday long celebrated as the birthday of the Unconquered Sun, but more recently as the birthday of Jesus Christ, the central figure in Christianity. Jesus is generally presented as a pacifist, author of the sermon on the … Continue reading

Posted in Articles Highlighted, Bushwacked, Christianity, Civil Unliberties, Ethics & Morality, Religion, State & Church, Torture | 11 Comments

CS Lewis’ Moral Argument

In Mere Christianity, C S Lewis wrote: If a good God made the world why has it gone wrong? And for many years I simply refused to listen to the Christian answers to this question, because I kept on feeling … Continue reading

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Atheism & Morals

In 1966 the Christian philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre gave a lecture at Columbia University called “Atheism and Morals” (later published in a book titled, The Religious Significance of Atheism, Columbia University Press, 1969) which is remarkable for laying out in clear … Continue reading

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esli Boga net — znachit, vsio pozvoleno

While attempting to track down exact wording and attribution for Dostoevsky’s famous phrase, “If God does not exist, everything is permitted” — which supposedly was uttered by Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, I discovered David Cortesi’s assertion … Continue reading

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Implicit Associations Testing

We are often unaware of the implicit associations or unconscious biases we carry around. Scientists Mahzarin Banaji, Tony Greenwald & Brian Nosek believe they may have found a test for identifying such implicit biases. It is well known that people … Continue reading

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