Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, October 2, 2012,
In :
blogging
So Skeptic Blogs had to change its name to appease Michael Shermer, whose own website bore a very similar nomenclature. We have now moved to a shinier, better equipped and more sleek site, called Skeptic Ink Network. My site still remains as A Tippling Philosopher:
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, August 22, 2012,
In :
blogging
The recent move from here (and Debunking Christianity) over to help found the new Skeptics Blogs is going great. The blogging community is growing there as we take on new bloggers, and the quality is right up there, whilst the footfall has certainly increased. All thing considered, I am a happy man. Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, August 16, 2012,
In :
blogging
THe internet is an amazing place, full of innovation and vibrancy. There has been a movement towards community blogging as of late, with bloggers coming together to operate on a platform of blogs. Such an example would be Freethought Blogs (FTB) which, despite its recent internal and external controversies, has been a resounding popular success. Such success is evident in its hits / readership.
With Skeptic Blogs, we would like to emulate the success but take it one step further in welcoming ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, August 15, 2012,
In :
General Life
Recently, at DC, I posted this:
I'm loving the Olympics, I really am. I have even been to see some women's volleyball and it was great. It has all been so well organised (and in so being, it's great to put one up Mitt Romney for his silly comments). However, the good ole sporting problem raises its theological head. Who does God support?
I was watching a boxing match which tied. This means that the judges' individual scores were tied so it goes down to who the judges selected in their intui...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, August 13, 2012,
In :
General Life
Within the next couple of days, there will be some exciting news to announce with regards to blogging. As you know, I am a regular contributor to Debunking Christianity, John Loftus' website and blog. There is movement afoot and a new project is under construction. All I can say is watch this space because there will be an exciting announcement to make in the next couple of days. Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, August 10, 2012,
In :
Religion
To coincide with the recent release of my book The Nativity: A Critical Examination, I wrote a couple of posts concerning issues with the nativity accounts in Luke and Matthew on the Debunking Christianity blog. One Christian commentator, Vincent, made replies to many of my points, all of which I rebutted. There was one point on which he pushed and that was a thesis by Christian physicist Frank Tipler that sets out to defend the Star of Bethlehem from a naturalistic standpoint. Tipler hypoth...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, August 6, 2012,
In :
Science
Rather similar to the Gao et al and Walter Mischel research I refer to in my Free Will? book, here is some new evidence showing that completion and attention at age four are accurate predictors of achievement some twenty years later:
Preschool Children Who Can Pay Attention More Likely to Finish College:
Early Reading
and Math Not Predictive of College Completion
ScienceDaily (Aug. 6, 2012) — Young children who are able to
pay attention and persist with a task have a 50 percent great...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, August 6, 2012,
In :
Religion
I'm loving the Olympics, I really am. I have even been to see some women's volleyball and it was great. It has all been so well organised (and in so being, it's great to put one up Mitt Romney for his silly comments). However, the good ole sporting problem raises its theological head. Who does God support?
I was watching a boxing match which tied. This means that the judges' individual scores were tied so it goes down to who the judges selected in their intuitive press of a button. This the...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, July 28, 2012,
In :
General Life
I am pretty excited to be going to the Olympics tonight - Earl's Court - to watch some Women's Volleyball. It starts at 10.00 in London so travelling is sure to be a nightmare, but it's got to be done.
The question is, who do I support? USA or South Korea?
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, July 23, 2012,
In :
Science
Social Deprivation Has a Measurable Effect On Brain
Growth
ScienceDaily (July 23, 2012) — Severe
psychological and physical neglect produces measurable changes in children's
brains, finds a study led by Boston Children's Hospital. But the study also
suggests that positive interventions can partially reverse these changes.
Researchers led by Margaret Sheridan, PhD, and Charles
Nelson, PhD, of the Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children's
Hospital, analyzed brain MRI scans from...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, July 23, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
Are humans getting better?
Due to our up and coming Tippling Philosopher’s meeting entitled “Are humans getting better?” I thought I would put a piece together to get a few thoughts down. This is an interesting question because it promotes going down all sorts of rabbit-holes. I will try and keep my thoughts tight, however.
First of all, we are not talking about the world, but about humans which keeps things nice and specific. “Are humans getting better?” straight away implies ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, July 22, 2012,
In :
Religion
Recently, I posted a piece on biblical contradictions and how Christians harness cognitive dissonance to help them find desperate ways in which to defend ideas of inerrancy. I looked to show that they use a circular approach without realising it:
1) The Bible never makes contradictions
2) All alleged contradictions can be harmonised
3) Since the Bible never makes contradictions, all harmonisations are inherently more probable than the idea that there are contradictions
4) All harmonisations ...
This review is from: Free Will?: An investigation into whether we have free will, or whether I was always going to write this book (Paperback)
I recommend this entertaining and well-argued, mind-blowing book in which the author examines a notion we all seem to take for granted in the West, i.e., our dearly beloved notion of free wil... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, July 15, 2012,
In :
Politics
More than half would now vote for a nonbeliever.
Published on June 28, 2012 by David Niose in Our Humanity,
Naturally
The good news for nonbelievers is that, for the first time ever, more than half the American population would vote for a qualified, open atheist for president. A recentGallup poll shows that 54 percent of Americans would not consider a candidate’s atheism to be a disqualification for holding the nation's highest office.
This shows remarkable progress, a nine-point incr...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, July 13, 2012,
In :
Religion
Recently, elsewhere, I have been discussing the contradictions of the Bible. Many are fairly irrelevant in the scheme of things and don’t really invalidate the core claims of the Bible, only the claims of inerrancy. What it does show, however, is the rationalisation process of the average Christian. Not only is the process hilarious to watch, but the answers given vary so widely amongst defenders of inerrancy (and even amongst liberal defenders who instinctively try to protect the Bible's ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, July 4, 2012,
In :
Religion
This superb essay was linked to me by Andreas on another thread. I/t is 44 years old now and was written by Antony Flew in his prime. It is as relevant today as it ever was:
Theology and Falsification
The following excerpt was published in Reason and Responsibility (1968).
by Antony Flew
et us begin with a parable. It is a parable developed from a tale told by John Wisdom in his haunting and revolutionary article "Gods."[1] Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jun...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, July 4, 2012,
In :
Religion
Here is a video summing up and previous blog post of mine about theists using evidence at the opposite ends of the spectrum to conclude that God exists.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, July 3, 2012,
In :
Science
[From msnbc.com]
SANTA CLARA,
Calif. — Our universe could have
popped into existence 13.7 billion years ago without any divine help
whatsoever, researchers say.
That may run counter to our instincts, which recoil at the
thought of something coming from nothing. But we shouldn't necessarily trust
our instincts, for they were honed to help us survive on the African savannah
150,000 years ago, not understand the inner workings of the universe.
Instead, scientists say, we should trust the la...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, June 29, 2012,
In :
Books
So I have a stalker. He's a complete tool with no capacity for intellectual conversation. He started by posting a negative review of my free will book without having read it. He has done it on .com and .co.uk,. He has started reading it now but is so dense that he is making stooopid claims. He is a man of the cloth, it seems - a Father Clifford Stevens.
For example, in Free Will I set out the three positions, talk about their main adherents and then debunk them. However, he quotes me quoting... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, June 23, 2012,
In :
Religion
Here is a good post from another blog which I think is worth reposting. I think people forget to think of the Gospel writers as real people actually sitting down and logistically trying to create something so demanding:
It always puzzles me at the idea that someone might assume one person, be he named Matthew or Sam, just sat down one day and decided to write a book called the Gospel according to Matthew from memory or from his own notes. Is this how literary scholars think things got writ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, June 22, 2012,
In :
Books
My new book "The Nativity: A Critical Examination" is now through all the distribution channels! It has a foreword written by David Fitzgerald, author of "Nailed". Looking at the infancy narratives in the Bible, it analyses the reports from a historical context to see whether they stand up to scrutiny.
They don't. Check it out in paperback or on Kindle.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, June 21, 2012,
In :
Religion
Whilst some of you may think Christmas has come early, the reality is that I have a new book out which deals with the historicity of the nativity accounts found in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. As if all the other arguments aren’t enough, there’s nothing like topping it all off with a healthy dose of critical historical analysis.
So the book is called The Nativity: A Critical Examination and the more involved in writing and researching it I became, the more amazed I was that anyone a...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, June 14, 2012,
I was perusing Victor Reppert’s blog in order to catch a feeling of what apologists around are saying. Something that Reppert was talking about over on his blog dangerous idea the other day struck me as slightly nonsensical. Reppert was dealing with Keith Parsons talking about the commandment to love thy enemies, and how far this should be taken. Parsons gives examples of really terrible actions of certain people and Reppert counters that loving these people is “above his pay grade”: ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, June 13, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
i am pretty excited about tonight's talk on free will to the Portsmouth Skpetics in a Pub group. Hopefully there'll be a good turn out. Free will seems to really be on the agenda at the moment. People are talking about it and it features on programmes such as Horizon, Radio 4 and suchlike. There is certainly an appetite fro the debate.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, June 12, 2012,
In :
Science
New Evidence Supports Theory of Extraterrestrial Impact
ScienceDaily (June 11, 2012) — An 18-member international team of researchers that includes James Kennett, professor of earth science at UC Santa Barbara, has discovered melt-glass material in a thin layer of sedimentary rock in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Syria. According to the researchers, the material -- which dates back nearly 13,000 years -- was formed at temperatures of 1,700 to 2,200 degrees Celsius (3,100 to 3,600 degr...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, June 10, 2012,
In :
Religion
I would like to investigate in
this post the opportunism of the theist. I have been involved in many
conversations and debates, and have certainly seen many debates between
proponents of most corners of the divides, and there is something which does
annoy me. Theists, it seems, like to have their cake and eat it. They seem to
enjoy the ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ ethos. There are many arguments where
the theist will use the evidence available, in this here world, to support
their case. ...
Catholic, Born-Again, Reformed, Jew, Muslim, Shiite,
Sunni, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist . . . . Religions give people labels. The
downside can be tribalism, an assumption that insiders are better than
outsiders, that they merit more compassion, integrity and generosity or even
that violence toward “infidels” is acceptable. But the upside is that religious
or spiritual labels offer a way of defining ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, June 6, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
Recently, William Lane Craig has produced a video, based on an essay in a book he and Paul Copan have edited this year “Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics” entitled “Terrible objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument”. I am yet to read the essay, but I must assume it to broadly follow the line of his video of the lecture “Worst objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument”.
I have a mild obsession with the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) and am poten...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, June 3, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
As you may have gathered, I object to the Kalam Cosmological Argument. A lot. On my You Tub video about it, a Christian posted something to which i retorted. I then also sent him my extended post rejecting the KCA. He then sent me a video recently taken of Craig refuting objections by internet philosophers of the KCA.
So far I have only watched 19 minutes of it, but based on those 19 minutes, my opinion is pretty damned low. Craig's problem with the circularity picks on a rather bizarre and i... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, May 31, 2012,
In :
Religion
In this post, I
am going to look at the resurrection account given by Matthew, in particular
his addition found in no other Gospel account, that there were guards stationed
at the tomb.
According to
Matthew, the chief priests were worried that the disciples might steal Jesus’
body to fake a resurrection, so they went to Pilate and got permission to post
a guard on the tomb. When Jesus rose from the dead, the guards reported it to
the priests, and the priests bribed them to claim that...
People with autism appear less likely to believe in God – a
discovery that has strengthened theories that religious belief relies on being
able to imagine what God is thinking, a capacity known as
"mentalising".
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, May 28, 2012,
In :
Books
I have just received my proof copy of my new book "The Nativity: A Critical Examination" and it looks really good. As you can imagine, i am pretty excited. It is available of kindle already, but there's nothing like the feel of new book in your hands!
The cover looks great too. Just a week or so before it filters through the distribution channels then!
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, May 26, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
I have been discussing with someone about moral responsibility with regards to determinism, free will and compatibilism.
Compatibilists often claim, as per David Hume, that the agent has free will because they are not being physically coerced to do something by another agent. However, a hard determinist such as myself will simply claim that that coercion is internal, and not external. The causal process is what makes an agent do something, and this may take its form in other agents, genetics,... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, May 25, 2012,
In :
Books
A chap called George Ortega contacted me recently about a video of my free will talk to the South Hampshire Humanists. He runs a small local cable project about free will in the States. Anywho, he is planning on using the video as the backbone for four of his cable shows, which is great.
What is more impressive, is this quote from him:
This is far and away the best refutation of free will available anywhere! I'm only about 1/3rd of the way through it, and Johno Pearce wowed me so completely ...
Posted by B__e on Thursday, May 24, 2012,
In :
Religion
Here is a post from an ex-Christian called B__e who has been ruminating on this for a whiile. See what you think:
Ten Commandments or Ten
Suggestions?
By B__e
I have
sometimes heard that the Bible has the Ten Commandments and not the “Ten
Suggestions.” I’m not so sure that
Yahweh thinks so based on the Scriptures themselves, since He appears to break
or flout them all. You be the judge…
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, May 23, 2012,
In :
Science
I am presently reading Laurence Krauss' readable and short book "A Universe from Nothing". i like short books like this due to the fact that my reading list is incredibly long.
I was reading a segment on antimatter and antiparticles, and I just loved this quote:
I like to say that while antimatter may seem strange, it is strange in the sense that Belgians are strange. They are not really strange; it is just that one rarely meets them.
Anywho, it seems a good book so far, some 50 odd pa...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, May 21, 2012,
In :
Religion
Author John W Loftus has asked me to be a guest poster over at Debunking Christianity. At 130,000 hits+ a month, this is a great privilege and one about which I am very grateful. Thanks to John for the invitation. Hope to see you there!
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, May 20, 2012,
In :
Religion
Why, indeed, do normal people believe ridiculous things? We have heard much from John Loftus about the OTF – the Outsider Test for Faith – which essentially illustrates that religion is a (geographical) accident of birth. It claims that if believers used the same critical powers they use to assess, and dismiss, other religions and their claims, then they are obliged to turn those critical faculties on their own. If they did, John would claim, then they would surely end up dismissing the c...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, May 19, 2012,
In :
Religion
OCKHAM’S RAZOR AND CHRISTIANITY
Here is a definition of Ockham’s Razor:
Occam's Razor: the principle that entities should not be
multiplied needlessly; the simplest of two competing theories is to be preferred.
This can often be a very useful principle in comparing
competing theories which seek to explain the same phenomena. I will like to
apply this theory to everything we know and see whether Christianity or atheism
is a more attractive theory.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, May 17, 2012,
In :
Religion
Exclusivism, as I understand it, is merely accepting one
belief in denying other similar claims. Which can surely be boiled down to
accepting a claim and denying other claims.
We all do this, surely.
I see people as having two choices for living in a world of
evidence.
1) being Pyrrhonian Skeptics
2) being able to make some kind of truth claims (beliefs)
For those who don't know Pyrrhonian Skepticism:
Whereas academic skepticism, with Carneades as its most
famous adherent, cla...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, May 16, 2012,
In :
Books
I am pretty excited. My new book, The Nativity: A Critical Examination, has been submitted to Kindle and the printers / distributors. It will be available on Kindle by the end of today, and I should get a print proof copy within, say, a week or so.
Being my fourth book (discounting the children's book I edited), I am really happy with things at the moment. It's all about keeping that profile up!
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, May 11, 2012,
In :
Books
I am very excited to announce that author and public speaker David Fitzgerald will be writing the foreword for my new book "The Nativity: A Critical Examination". i am really pleased that he thought the book was "excellent".
I am presently making some final editions, changing a few things about which David and myself have been talking. A big thanks to him.
Go and buy his excellent book from the UK and US links above!
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, May 7, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
Sam Harris, apparently, has recently been defending profiling. Without knowing the detail of what he says and the real context, I thought I'd give my tuppence worth in defending profiling in a basic philosophical way. Here is what I have posted elsewhere:
In really simple terms, profiling should be seen in a
consequentialist frame (IF you adhere to moral consequentialism. If not, and
you adhere to Kantian Categorical Imperatives, then profiling is likely morally
bad in and of itself since peop...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, May 3, 2012,
In :
Religion
Highly Religious People Are Less Motivated by Compassion Than Are Non-Believers
ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2012) — "Love thy neighbor" is preached from many a pulpit. But new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that the highly religious are less motivated by compassion when helping a stranger than are atheists, agnostics and less religious people.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, May 2, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
I was worried recently when I read the phrase “goal-directed
evolution” in some philosophy writing. This annoys me since it shows what I
consider to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what evolution is and does,
and philosophers should know better,
People often think, incorrectly, that genes, or chromosomes,
or animals, or evolution as a whole are invested with purpose, with agency.
This is patently false. There is no agency in the chemical make-up of genetic
material and evolution, ...
Having looked at biblical issues concerning the position of
deeming h/s morally wrong, let us now look at what makes people h/s and whether
it is fair for an all-loving god to judge them.
Historically, h/s has been seen as a behavioural choice.
However, over recent years, more and more research has been carried out into
the causality of h/s.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 30, 2012,
In :
Religion
This is an excellent and informative post from Harry McCall on DC which i thought was interesting enough to post here:
This is the reply I got from the foremost scholar on
Josephus today (apart from Louis Feldman). Steve Mason is editor-in-chief
of EJ Brill’s multi-volume on the works of Josephus:
In a remote corner of the universe, on a small blue planet
gravitating around a humdrum sun in the outer districts of the Milky Way,
organisms arose from the primordial mud and ooze in an epic struggle for
survival that spanned aeons.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, April 27, 2012,
In :
Religion
I am writing a post in reaction
to something about which I was talking with my Christian friend (let’s call him
Colin). We were talking about homosexuality and his approach to it given his
Christian background. Some points were interesting and some I fundamentally
disagreed with. Here are his views:
As according to the Bible, homosexuality is wrong.
This morality is grounded in God.
He is not homophobic and detests that label as it
automatically halts any further informed discu...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, April 26, 2012,
In :
Books
I thought, as I was reading through Free Will? again for a reprint, that it was worth posting this. It is still, to me, a really powerful argument against the sort of God we all know and love....
Normally, there are two
ways of seeing theological determinism. Firstly, the soft type, called soft
theological determinism, allows for humans to have free will, even though God
knows what they are going to do. The hard type means that humans do not have
any free will, and G...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, April 25, 2012,
In :
Books
I will soon be writing an extended essay on the Kalam Cosmological Argument as used by William Lane Craig. This has recently been a personal interest of mine as a subject, so it seems obvious that it would be a future choice of subject for a book.
The KCA has been a stalwart defence used by many apologists, particularly Craig. erroneously so, I believe. The essay and book will set out to undermine the KCA in the ways that I have shown already on this blog and in the essay section in my cosmolo... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, April 25, 2012,
In :
Religion
Battles have been raging online over the last month or so
with regards to Ehrman's treatment of mythicism in his last book (Did
Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, cobbled together
from his debates, I believe) which was summed up here in his outspoken Huff
Post article:
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, April 19, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
At our last Tippling Philosophers meeting we threw into the hat the questions that we would most like answered. I compiled them all, and combined a couple (which is why number 6 is missing). What do you think? What questions would you think are the most important questions?
1. What one quality / human characteristic should we want to
prioritise in carrying forward out development / evolution?
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, April 19, 2012,
In :
Science
Can Behavior Be Controlled by Genes? The Case of Honeybee Work Assignments
ScienceDaily (Apr. 18, 2012) — What worker bees do depends on how old they are. A worker a few days old will become a nurse bee that devotes herself to feeding larvae (brood), secreting beeswax to seal the cells that contain brood and attending to the queen.
After about a week, she will progress to other tasks, such as grooming nest mates, ventilating the nest and packing pollen. Only at the end of her life will she be...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, April 18, 2012,
In :
Science
Here is a response I made to Steve, a christian posting on DC, to a popular myth about evolution spread by the likes of Kent Hovind.
OK, Steve has used the :
We all know that dogs give birth to dogs, not zebras, and
ants lay eggs that hatch into ants, not Canada Geese.
approach, which is straight from the book of Hovind.
Firstly, let me remind you of a post I made here at DC about
a year ago about there being no such thing as a species (objectively) -
http://atipplingphilosopher.yolas...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 16, 2012,
In :
Religion
I have seen the opening statements of both. I almost burst
out laughing at the poor poor tack taken by Darrel. Firstly, he sets out
deconstructing Avalos' epistemology and morality. This is both a red herring
and a shifting of the burden of proof. It matters not one jot, because that is
not the focus of the debate. The debate is "Is the bible a source of
absolute moral rules for today?" I can only see that Darrel should make a
defensive stance. Avalos could have come out and said "I derive my...
Basically, so that we may be able to take this discussion
further towards a much-needed conclusion, this is what I think faith is:
I am going to flesh out what is essentially the dictionary
definition so that it is more philosophical and robust. But I am essentially
not redefining it too far beyond what is accepted by the majority of the world....
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, April 13, 2012,
In :
Youtube
Here is the video of the talk I did on free will to the South Hampshire Humanists in January of this year. Let me know what you think. The questions got cut off at the end.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, April 12, 2012,
In :
Religion
This is a superb video which I have seen a few times. There is a lot of info in it, and it gathers momentum as it goes on. The case Carrier builds up for internal evidence as to the existence of Jesus, or lack thereof, is fantastic. I am not a mythicist: I am agnostic. But he does build a superb case.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, April 10, 2012,
In :
Science
Born Nice? Peoples' Niceness May Reside in Their Genes, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Apr. 10, 2012) — It turns out that the milk of human kindness is evoked by something besides mom's good example. Research by psychologists at the University at Buffalo and the University of California, Irvine, has found that at least part of the reason some people are kind and generous is that their genes nudge them toward it.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 9, 2012,
In :
Religion
This is an essay submitted by Sarah Cook, an undergraduate student reading Religious and Theological Studies at Cardiff University. It is a good, concise synopsis on whether Paul defends slavery or doesn't; and whether he does so from a position of historical and cultural context or from his own understanding of the morality of slavery.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, April 7, 2012,
In :
Religion
Courtesy of richarddawkins.net:
The Lord’s Army Comes to America’s Public Schools
By KATHERINE STEWART - RICHARDDAWKINS.NET Added: Wednesday, 14 March 2012 at 3:57 PM - An RDFRS Original
“Now that you know the truth, who will you share this with?” asked Ian’s fourth-grade teacher. The setting was a March 2012 meeting of the Good News Club in a Pasadena, California public elementary school. Good News Clubs are afterschool “Bible study” programs with a fundamentalist agenda that are ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, April 3, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
I am really pleased to announce that I have another speaking engagement booked in Portsmouth, to talk to the Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub about free will.
The Skeptics in a Pub is a growing secular movement around the country, and I must say, I am really looking forward to it!
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 2, 2012,
In :
Religion
Burqas are back on the agenda in the UK. This is because there was a
recent furore within the British legal aystem. A Muslim woman was barred from
serving on a jury because she refused to remove her veil. In a controversial
ruling, a judge said she could not sit on an attempted murder trial because her
full face covering (niqab) concealed her expressions.
Knowing this is controversial, I would like to give my
tuppence worth because I am against the wearing of such veils and I will tell
yo...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, March 30, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
In reading Steven Pinker’s How the Mind Works, which has
been a slow burner (both in terms of time taken to read it and time taken to
get into the really interesting stuff), I have just started to read about the
importance and ontology of emotions. I came to a realisation, explicitly, that
emotions are fundamental to our lives. Fundamental by way of giving us the
reasons and desire to do all that we do. In fact, without emotion, we wouldn’t
get anything done, and would undoubtedly not exi...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, March 28, 2012,
In :
Science
By
Jonathan Amos
Science
correspondent, BBC News, Manchester
There
could be many billions of planets not much bigger than Earth circling faint
stars in our galaxy, says an international team of astronomers.
The
estimate for the number of "super-Earths" is based on detections
already made and then extrapolated to include the Milky Way's population of
so-called red dwarf stars.
The
team works with the high-precision Harps instrument.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, March 18, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
Here is an excerpt from my first book, Free Will? I have always been interested in consciousness and it remains a fertile battleground for many philosophers:
We have touched lightly
on naturalism and the soul, so it would be rude, and a little short-sighted, to
forget to mention consciousness. Consciousness is another sticky bog that perhaps
potentially undermines any concept of determinism. Unlike the soul, we know
consciousness, at least in some way (and possibly...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, March 16, 2012,
In :
Religion
Can religion be destroyed?
I was involved in a little discussion over at Advocatus
Atheist the other day with regards to whether a secular and sceptical approach
can spell the end of religion. I found this to be interesting. Even if the
evidence 9does it not already) overwhelmingly ruled in favour of the disbelief
in a personal god, would religion still tenuously hang on to the threads of
desperate hope or ritualistic comforts that humanity seems to endure?
One has to wonder why, if travelling from
the East, the star does not lead the magi directly to Bethlehem
but to Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem. What becomes even more implausible
is that Herod decided not to follow the star himself, but to task the itinerant
wise men with going themselves and ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, March 8, 2012,
In :
Religion
When thinking about subjects like the fine-tuning argument
it becomes apparent that the theist loves to have their cake and eat it. They
thrive off a “heads I win, tails you lose scenario”.
What I mean by this can be exemplified as follows:
In the fine-tuning argument when a sceptic argues:
The universe is more fine-tuned for death than life.
The size of the universe is so unbelievably and
unnecessarily massive that it appears that it is not designed for human life.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, March 4, 2012,
In :
Politics
Call me a liberal leftie socialist (actually, I wasn't always. When I first studied economics I was pretty conservative) but....
It has become highly newsworthy recently that due to austerity measures in the UK, and due to slashed budgets in the police finances, certain UK police forces are considering outsourcing police work to private companies.
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but private companies are answerable to stakeholders (shareholders) who demand profit. First and foremost, companies ar... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, March 2, 2012,
In :
Religion
As a fan of much of Richard Carrier's work, I am looking forward to watching this debate on whether Jesus was the Son of God or a mere apocalyptic prophet.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, February 25, 2012,
In :
Religion
Here are some notes I made some time ago on the Fine-Tuning argument. From memory, some of the ideas came from Richard Carrier in Sense and Goodness Without God. The argument looks like this (wiki):
The fine-tuned Universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different, the Universe would be unl... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, February 19, 2012,
In :
Politics
I am really quite scared about the future of, well, the
world. We are potentially in the hands of big corporations and idiot
politicians. What is particularly worrying is the potential presidents of the US: the
Republican Party candidate leaders. There were several articles in the Guardian
today which scared the bejesus out of me. This was one of them:
Attacks paid for by big business are 'driving science into a
dark era'
Researchers attending one of the world's major academic
conference...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, February 18, 2012,
In :
Religion
The existence of a world without God seems to me less absurd
than the presence of a God, existing in all his perfection, creating an
imperfect man in order to make him run the risk of Hell - Armand Salacrou.
I recall the story of the philosopher and the theologian.
The two were engaged in disputation and the theologian used the old quip about
a philosopher resembling a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat
-- which wasn't there. "That may be," said the philosopher: "but
a the...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, February 17, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
I was at a place called Monkey Bizness the other day with my
two 18 month old twins and my partner. Monkey Bizness is a sort of kids climbing
area with ball pits and all sorts. There is a special closed off area with a
ball pit for under 2s only. There is a clear sign on the outside of the area
and then by the ball pit which says children must be under 2 and cannot be
supervised by an older sibling but only an adult.
I say this because this place led me to the realisation that
I cannot st...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, February 11, 2012,
In :
Religion
Here is a post aimed at getting some answers out of William Lane Craig about his inner witness of the Holy Spirit. John Loftus at DC would like him to answer dome pertinent questions, as you can see:
Most people know that I defend William Lane Craig against the charge that he is dishonest as an apologist. Among skeptics I am his biggest defender, perhaps the only one. But I have just ask...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, February 9, 2012,
In :
Books
I am continuing apace with my latest book. But the more research that I do, the more astounded I am that anyone believes in the historical veracity of the nativity accounts of Jesus' birth.
I am including a section that I am still working on, and which has not been proof read yet, so apologies for any typos. It looks at the early actions of Herod and the notion that the magi are nothing but literary and theological devices:
13 – Herod acts rather naively and the magi as a mechanism
for Matthe...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, February 7, 2012,
In :
Religion
The faithful must learn to respect those who question their beliefs
Tensions between religion and science will persist unless believers
recognise that skepticism is a hallmark of science
Issues of personal faith can be a source of respectful
debate and discussion. Since faith is often not based on evidence, however, it
is hard to imagine how various deep philosophical or religious disagreements
can be objectively laid to rest. As a result, skeptics like myself struggle to
understand or an...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, February 5, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
Thanks to the South Hampshire Humanists who invited me to speak to them about free will last month. They have reviewed the talk in their recent newsletter:
… we were treated to an excellent exposition of the
determinist position from our member Jonathan Pearce, suitably accompanied by
slides. He began by reminding us of the three main positions — Libertarian (we
own the decisions we make), Determinist (everything we do is determined by past
conditions) and Compatibilist (Determinism and Fr...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, February 3, 2012,
In :
Science
I was over on Debunking Christianity getting involved with a thread with a Christian who denies evolution. It pisses me off. Do people not read books? Do they not talk to experts in the field?
From my book Unholy Questions:
It is worth looking at evolution in light of
what is necessary for humanity, or any living organism, to exist. First of all,
there must be a cycle to life. We must reproduce. Any life form that simply
existed as a finite number would have to be impervious to danger, immorta...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, January 31, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
I love this analogy for the intuitive brilliance and common sense that it makes. It exposes the explanatory weakness of supernaturalism and illustrates that it has been on the retreat ever since the new boy Science hit town. It can be found in many of Richard Carrier's writings, for example here. See what you think.
The cause of lightning was once thought to be God's wrath, but turned out to be the unintelligent outcome of mindless natural forces. We once thought an intelligent being must have... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, January 29, 2012,
In :
Religion
Epistemologically speaking, truth was often seen as being
the product of revelation, whether from God or the Pope. Therefore, empiricism
was frowned upon as a method to arrive at truth and certainly could not trump
revelation.
What was also frowned upon was scientific progress. This
value was seen as poor in comparison to the value of the Gospels and spreading
the good word, and the resulting relationship with God. These value positions
were not antithetical to God, but they likewise did ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, January 28, 2012,
In :
Religion
I have recently been involved in an argument online which is
a very common argument and one which annoys me just a little. It is also an
argument which I have had many times before with Christians. The claim goes
something like this:
“Christianity is responsible for the development of
science.”
The word science can be swopped with hospital, charity,
education and so on. In the case in hand, there were statements such as:
“the essential neccesity of Christianity to the origin...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, January 23, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
For those of you who don't know, philpapers is a resource I refer to a lot because it is so damned useful and interesting. Wiki:
PhilPapers is an
international, interactive academic database of journal articles for
professionals and students in philosophy. It is maintained as a combined
project of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University
(ANU), Canberra and the Institute
of Philosophy in the School of Advanced Study
at the University
of London.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, January 23, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
On Sunday, I was lucky enough to have been invited by the South Hampshire Humanists (SHH) to do a talk on free will in Southampton. This was my first public speaking engagement in the world of philosophy and I was both nervous and excited. There was an assembled audience of only 20 people which was nice and intimate. I talked for about 45 minutes and then did a Q and A session afterwards.
Back some months ago I turned up to the SHH drinks in a nearby pub - a social to discuss pertinent subject... Continue reading ...
Bethlehem
is a very important place for the average Christian. It is the birthplace of
Jesus. But it is more than that, it is the birthplace of the predicted Messiah,
whether Jesus existed or not. For Jews and Christians alike, Bethlehem was touted as ‘the place to be
born’ if you had any hopes of achieving Messianic greatness. For an
eva...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, January 18, 2012,
In :
Books
Kindle formatting is a nightmare. Not being able to accept tables for free-flowing text is a headache. For my twins book, which had loads of tables, it really proved frustrating. There were some glitches for the Free Will? book too (as well as a duplicated quote). I have now tidied them up and resubmitted a better .prc file for the Kindle version on Amazon. Anyone who has bought an earlier version, let me know (with proof) and I can send you a rectified file. Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, January 15, 2012,
In :
Philosophy
I was wondering today, as I lay there with one of my twins
in my arms, as to whether oughts can be derived from a natural pre-programmed’
behaviour. For example, if an evolved characteristic, such as aggressiveness in
males (I am generalising here, of course) or to want to eat meat, or, if it
could be proven, that it were ‘natural’ to be heterosexual was inherent in a
human, are we then obliged in some way to act in accordance with that ‘natural’
inclination?
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, January 11, 2012,
In :
Youtube
Just reading some writing which Saga Sabin sent me on consciousness, it reminded me of the problem faced with people who claim we have soul but who accept evolution. At what point in evolution did homo erectus or similar develop a soul? Which family had mum and dad without a soul but sonny with a soul?
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, January 11, 2012,
In :
Politics
I don’t profess to have too much opinion on Scottish
independence. It is quite hot news in the UK as there is talk of a referendum
Alex Salmond is leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) who, for the first
time ever, have a majority in the devolved Scottish parliament. There is great
debate as to whether it would be beneficial for Scotland to have their independence
from both sides of the fence.
There are claims that Scotland
are a drain on the UK
parliament and that they cost more ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, January 8, 2012,
In :
Books
I am really enjoying writing at the moment. I have drafted some 40 odd pages. Here is the start to the bppk (after the introduction) which looks at the Gospels as an overview, and then the two texts individually. I have included the short overview section here:
It would be imprudent to start talking about
the issues with the textual accounts of the nativity without at first
acknowledging their background and discussing the...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, January 4, 2012,
In :
Books
It always feels good to get a good evening's writing done. i must admit, I am really enjoying writing this new book (working title - 25 Reasons to Disbelieve the Nativity). I am some 20 odd pages in and I will certainly have enough pages to make a decent sized book. It is going to be a job making sure it is concise enough!
I am also rating Gerd Theissen's 'The Historical Jesus'. What a fantastic reference book it is turning out to be! I have just finished my opening background section on the G... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, January 3, 2012,
In :
Religion
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who
speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel
Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled
on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy
If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it
is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by
circumstances. -Theodore Dreiser, 1941.
I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient and omnipotent
God would have designedly cre...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, January 1, 2012,
In :
Religion
I have decided to compile a list of my favourite atheistic /
agnostic / philosophical songs. There are many on other lists which I do not
know and feel I would like to, but here is my definitive list. I have made a
comment with each and maybe copied the odd lyric to explain why it is in the
list. I will also try to list any YouTube links to the songs.
Please add your own selections in the comments below and if
I don’t know them, I am sure to want to check them out.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, December 28, 2011,
In :
Science
This is a fantastic article which I read a year or so ago and have subsequently dug up, written by Mark Henderson, Science Editor of The Times. It details how media organisations falsely promote balance when reporting science, and end up doing science a gross disservice.
Dear BBC: balance isn't everything
By Mark Henderson
At the end of September 2009, a 14-year-old girl collapsed
and died at her school in Coventry.
Natalie Morton, an autopsy showed, was killed by a large chest tumour that had
n...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, December 22, 2011,
In :
Religion
Craig, in the video above, cements the sort of views which I
posted in the previous blog entry. Thanks to GearHead Ed who linked this video
in the last blog post. Watch this video, and read the last blog post, and you
shall see that one can conclude the following about Craig’s views:
1)The
Witness of the Holy Spirit / subjective experience of God trumps every other
type of evidence / proof.
2)As
such, there is no contrary evidence whatsoever that would invalidate a bel...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, December 19, 2011,
In :
Religion
Craig has recently posted a Q&A that beggars belief. I'm not sure I need to explain it - I'll let the man talk for himself:
"This is because the resurrection of Jesus is essential to the truth of Christianity. So if Jesus did not rise from the dead, Christianity would be false. So if the bones of Jesus were discovered, that would entail that he did not rise from the dead and so Christianity would be falsified. ...
"So, yes, if the bones of Jesus were to be found, then he did not rise and Chr... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, December 18, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
Quite often, theists posit arguments, but when they are met with difficulties, they necessitate extra premises. This is the case in Glenn Peoples' Moral argument, as pointed out by
Stephen Law on his blog.
Here is what he had to say about what this does for the likelihood of the argument then being true:
Glenn Peoples' blog has been interesting me lately. He has just out up his version of a moral argument for the existence of God.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, December 16, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
When people claim things like free will is an illusion, as i do, then critics often hit back with "Why expect something so obvious to be false? Why not accept it on face value as you do most everything else int eh world?" etc. etc. This is an appeal to intuition as being a form of (reliable) knowledge.
The issue here is that many, many things in our world are not as they seem. Our interpretation of reality is exactly that an interpretation - and there is no guaranteeing its accuracy. Let me re... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, December 14, 2011,
In :
Books
Ho ho ho, it's Christmas. Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Or do they?
My next book, which has been on the back-burner for some time now, is tentatively called "25 Reasons to Disbelieve the Nativity". It will be a cumulative debunking of the Nativity of Jesus, Although there will be 25 points eventually, here below are 27 points, in note form, and the mental stretching and gerrymandering one has to do to accept them as coherent truth.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, December 12, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
If a theist or God declares that I ought to do something, say A (such that it is good and I would get
to heaven, but which is supposedly intrin, out of intrinsic duty, then this
scenario seems to render that divinely inspired ought as meaningless:
If I want to go to
hell, then in what sense of the word can it be said that I ought to do A? The
duty to do good is circular so that I cannot say I ought to do good in order to
do good, since this is tautologous. I ought to put oil in the car so...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, December 11, 2011,
In :
Religion
The statistics for miscarriages are notoriously difficult to
assess completely accurately. This is partly due to the fact that many
miscarriages go unreported (those after 6 weeks of gestation, which are known
as spontaneous clinical abortions). However, the greater reason is that early
pregnancy losses – those that happen during the first 6 weeks of pregnancy,
generally tend too happen without the mother even knowing.
So why am I writing about this? Well, because statistically,
it mean...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, December 4, 2011,
In :
Anthropology
Following an online argument which you can see here (where I think I safely refute the other guy's points fairly comprehensively. He's a dolt who couldn't argue his way out of a paper bag), I thought it would be interesting to post an article dealing with Steven Pinker's latest critically acclaimed book:
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, December 2, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
During William Lane Craig’s recent Reasonable Faith tour to
the UK
where he debated philosophers such as Stephen Law and Peter Millican, Craig
received a vast amount of publicity for having Dawkins refuse to debate him.
However, what was more important to me was either a severe case of
philosophical amnesia, or Craig has dropped the Kalam Cosmological Argument,
which has been a standard part of his three / four / five pronged attack for
decades. Why, I wonder. Well, let me explain.
Most Christians accept that a large part of the bible is a
metaphor, analogy or parable; whatever you call it, a lot is not meant to be
taken literally. In some parts of the gospels, Jesus spells out that he's
telling a parable - e.g. the prodigal son, good Samaritan etc. but in
others we have to hear the priest or minister explain that the story should be
interpreted as a story that teaches us something. One major example is
the story of creation which is only a...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, December 1, 2011,
In :
Politics
I was speaking to a friend last night at Transition Fareham’s
Green Drinks. This is a fathering of like-minded people who want to make our
local town more sustainable. My friend Fiona has started writing articles for a
local magazine and we were wondering if we could shoehorn Transition Fareham
into the article. One idea was writing an article about the 10 ways you, as an
individual, could change the world. I like this idea, so I have decided to
start a list of my own. Perhaps you could a...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, November 29, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
I've recently written a new essay which I have posted here in the essay section of the website. Please read it and see what you think. Post any comments to it here. Here is the abstract to the essay:
Abstract: This essay sets out to dispel the myth that the soul can be the originator for free will. I will start the essay by establishing the Cartesian idea of what the body is and showing that Descartes and modern biology indicate that the body is a biological machine. After indicating how Desca... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, November 27, 2011,
In :
Politics
This is the message i am putting on my window of the classroom in which I teach.
WHY I, MR PEARCE, AM GOING ON STRIKE – A FAIR LOOK AT
THE FACTS
There has been an awful lot of
misinformation in the media about why teachers have decided to strike, and the
reasons for and against such action. I would like to give parents the reasons why
I have decided to strike, and to give my side of the story.
The present government plans
are due to have the following consequences, among...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, November 26, 2011,
In :
Books
An announcement to any dads of twins out there in the UK. I have just released my third book, Twins: A Survival Guide for Dads. It is out now on Kindle, and will soon be released in paperback. Twins UK and TAMBA has shown an interest, which is great.
Here is the description and a review:
"So you’ve found out the good news. How did you take it? Normally it is a choice of pure joy, pure terror or downright panic. In the event of any or all of these emotions, you will certainly be needing advic... Continue reading ...
Now, the deniers still try to squirm their way out of accepting AGW, so I thought I'd look at it from a philosophical / psychological point of view. Hopefully, this exchange (not in its entirety here) might be of interest:
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, November 20, 2011,
In :
Religion
Some nice quotes from history to keep you company:
Blind faith is
an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence - anonThe church
says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow
on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church -
Ferdinand MagellanEvery step
which the intelligence of Europe has taken has
been in spite of the clerical party - Victor Hugo
All great truths begin as blasphemies - George Bernard Shaw Religion
is wha...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, November 19, 2011,
In :
Religion
In “Does the New Testament Imitate Homer?”, Dennis MacDonald
seeks to show how Luke / Acts imitates Homer. Luke, he claims very
convincingly, uses mimesis –the copying
/ imitating previous works for a variety of reasons – by imitating the
works of Homer. This then calls into question the factual historicity of the
events accounted.
MacDonald show in the introduction how Luke quite obviously
uses mimesis with regards to the Old Testament. Over to the author:
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, November 15, 2011,
In :
Religion
Here are some notes I made from Tim Callahan's "The Secret origin of the Bible" a few years back. Excuse the note form and any spelling / syntax errors. It's still interesting reading and shows how clearly the account is mythological. Samson makes no sense as a stand alone tale, and has no allegorical or symbolic meaning at all, begging the question as to why it's in the bible at all, if not a story lifted from a nearby culture and adopted to Yahweh.
"As reported by Christianity Today (see here), New Testament scholar Michael Licona has apparently lost both his job as research professor of New Testament at Southern Evangelical Seminary and been ousted as apologetics coordinator for the North America Mission Board (NAMB). Why? In h... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, November 9, 2011,
In :
Religion
Some apologists explain the separate and different details of the passion
narratives by claiming that all the accounts of the passion, particularly the
empty tomb sequences, are harmonisable – ie that all the witnesses were at the
empty tomb, that all the discrepancies of the gospels were actual individual
events, not versions of the same event?
Reading around this, this is a classic situation of conservative vs
liberal. Liberals are not bound to
interpret the evidence charitably, and can...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, November 6, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have an analogy which I hope will illustrate why at least
a lot of examples of alleged successful prayer or interventions of God take
place.
Yesterday I was pumping up the tyres to my twins’ buggy. I
have an old bicycle pump which I bought probably seven years ago. I bought it
for £3 – peanuts. This pump has been very hard working – two bicycles and a
buggy at regular intervals (the buggy particularly often needing pumping up).
The pump has worked tirelessly (pun intended).
At some point in our evolutionary history, pre-humans made an important leap in cognitive ability. We moved from first order contemplation to second order. That is, we went from thinking to thinking about thinking. Before this leap, we were not very much different than most of the animals we’re familiar with — dogs, cats, horses. We know they can think, and they are often very good at solving problems, but it’s pretty obvious...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, November 4, 2011,
In :
Politics
A parable
Lo! And it came to pass that a certain man was prevailed upon by his wife to have built a new kitchen extension unto his home. Loud were her weeping and wailings. Deep were her sighs. Many were the nights that she was just too tired, and extensive, even unto the splitting headaches. Until it became clear to the man that easement of his life would be facilitated merely by the building of a new kitchen extension.
Now in those lands lived a builder and on the white sides of his van were ...
Thanks to Michele Bachmann, the tired concept of Intelligent Design has once again become a topic of conversation among Creationists, most of whom, ironically, often sound like Neanderthals. In case you don't know, this boneheaded theory claims that the human body is simply too remarkable to have come into being through millions of years of haphazard evolution, and that some super-intelligent deity must have been the engineering wi... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, November 3, 2011,
In :
Science
Erasing the Signs of Aging in Human Cells Is Now a Reality
ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2011) — Scientists have recently succeeded in rejuvenating cells from elderly donors (aged over 100). These old cells were reprogrammed in vitro to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and to rejuvenated and human embryonic stem cells (hESC): cells of all types can again be differentiated after this genuine "rejuvenation" therapy. The results represent significant progress for research into iPSC cells and a fur...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, November 1, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
This, from the review by Wintery Knight, shows the refutation to the KCA that I have been banging on about for a year or so is being used against Craig in debate. Finally. Well done Peter Millican.
"1. There is no evidence that whatever begins to exist requires a cause. All the evidence we have of things beginning to exist are when something is created from rearrangements of other things that already existed.
The closest analog we have to something coming into being from nothing is quantum part...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, October 29, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
I am going to use an unlikely tool to show the philosophical
veracity of determinism – the belief that we have no free will. The evidence I
am going to bring to the stand is / are Jedward. For those who don’t know them,
they were X-Factor sensations from Ireland – identical twins who are
so similar you just can’t tell them apart. And they do EVERYTHING together.
So, let’s look at free will. I do not want to get into the
intricacies of free will here (you can read my book...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, October 28, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have just listened to Ray Bradley debate William Lane Craig. I heard this several years ago but didn't really pay it close attention. This time round I was quite shocked at how many points Craig evaded, or logical demands from Bradley that he met with the terms "God may" and so on.
Craig squirmed big time when Bradley pressed him on subsets of compossibles. This is a REALLY important point. I will try to set it out here:
Imagine a set of people, call that set A. These are all the people in ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, October 24, 2011,
In :
Religion
Does Morality Depend on God? - P. Wesley Edwards
(updated 20-Aug-2004)
Introduction
I have rarely engaged in a debate with a theist where the issue of morality justification has not come up. The theist’s complaint typically takes the following form.
If there is no God, then why is it wrong to murder and steal? Even if you don't want to murder and steal, on what grounds can you criticize someone who does, since morals must be completely relative and arbitrary to an atheist? Without God there ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, October 20, 2011,
In :
Religion
So, on to the rebuttals. Craig pointed out in several of his
rebuttals that Law has not, and did not seem to want to, critique the
cosmological argument. Craig does have some beef here as Law seemed to want to
debate Craig’s version of God rather than the more fundamental argument over A
God’s existence. Thus in true debate point-scoring, Law would take a hit here.
However, as Law plainly stated, and I think this was a wise move, this would
have broadened the scope too far and wasn’t im...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, October 20, 2011,
In :
Science
In a YouTube conversation that I am having, I have been discussing Stephen Law's chat with Alvin Plantinga on Premier Christian Radio's Unbelievable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyQ5cFIoKts
The poster stated this: "To return to the frog example. Why should natural selection care about the frog's beliefs? If you design a robot to catch flies, it can do so beautifully without having true beliefs - or false beliefs - or any beliefs. So why should natural selection bring beliefs into the equ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, October 19, 2011,
In :
Religion
So, on to Law’s opening statements. It’s probably better to
get this from the horse’s mouth - http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/opening-speech-craig-debate.html.
However, I will duly sum up. Law, much to his credit, claimed he was only
interested in defending his position using only one argument, based on the
Evidential Problem of Evil. That being, if God is omnipotent, omniscient and
omnibenevolent, then he is able, knows how and is loving enough to want to do
something about all ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, October 18, 2011,
In :
Religion
Last night, two friends and I went to the Stephen Law vs
William Lane Craig debate at Westminster
where the two philosophers were debating ‘Does God Exist?’ Craig’s Reasonable
Faith tour has been hotly anticipated by Christians and non-Christians alike,
and with the relative unknown of Stephen Law (in debating terms), there was a
feeling of unpredictability thrown in to the usual wager that Craig would win.
The debate was good, though not necessarily for the
straightforward reason o...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, October 18, 2011,
In :
Religion
I was lucky enough to be in Westminster at the Law vs Craig debate on Craig's Reasonable Faith tour. It was a cracking night. I do not have time to review it yet. Suffice to say that it was probably a draw. The format was good and the contributions good. I thought it was well-narrowed down, and Craig did not produce a scatter-gun approach.
A much larger review to follow.
Also, I got to meet both of them, gave Law my book, and asked Craig a question to which he couldn't answer. Great.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, October 16, 2011,
In :
Religion
I am going to see William Lane Craig debate Stephen Law tomorrow in Westminster. I am pretty excited, even though the best one can hope for is some kind of philosophical impasse. Anyway, I have penned a couple of questions which I would love the opportunity to ask. I will try and get my tuppence worth in the Q & A:
Given that God is perfect, this must either be the perfect
creation, or the most perfect created parameters that could achieve the best possible outcome. Since plate tectonic which...
God comes to you and tells you
there are transcendent, unconditional moral oughts. Just imagine that in this
world all the things you ‘ought’ to do, from a moral point of view (a moral
ought), happen to cause unfathomable pain, suffering and injustice and will
land you up in hell where you will experi...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, October 9, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have just listened to Ray Bradley debate William Lane Craig. I heard this several years ago but didn't really pay it close attention. This time round I was quite shocked at how many points Craig evaded, or logical demands from Bradley that he met with the terms "God may" and so on.
Craig squirmed big time when Bradley pressed him on subsets of compossibles. This is a REALLY important point. I will try to set it out here:
Imagine a set of people, call that set A. These are all the people in t...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, October 5, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
A really important point made here in the context of debating William Lane Craig:
"Additionally he has to posit that the most complex state of being possible, God, was uncaused whilst the simplest possible state, empty space, had to have been caused by god." This, as a wider point, is a really concise and acute way of putting across the idea that an eternally existing universe is no more, and even somewhat less, improbable than an eternally existing God. I like it.
"So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers t... Continue reading ...
Let us assume the triple properties of the classical approach to God: that he is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. In terms of the classic Problem of Evil argument, if there is too much evil in the world, ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, September 25, 2011,
In :
Religion
I was walking past the newspaper stand in the newsagents and
I saw the headline to the Daily Mail. Now, the Daily Mail is a hate-filled
diatribe of poor and polemical journalism. Its online message boards more so,
with posters who are so right wing, they would be more at home in the Tea
Party.
Anyhow, what was the headline? Well:
BBC turns its back on year of Our Lord: 2,000 years of
Christianity jettisoned for politically correct 'Common Era'
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, September 19, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
Recently, the PFA (Professional Footballers’ Association)
has been toying with the idea of employing the Rooney Rule when shortlisting
and interviewing candidates for managerial positions in football clubs in England. The rule demands that clubs must interview at least one black person for manager when recruiting. This rule was rolled out to NFL clubs in the States in 2003 and has since been reformed to include ethnic minorities there. I
would like to look at this from a philosophical poin...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, September 16, 2011,
In :
Youtube
Check out my YouTube channel for interesting videos on topics covered in my books, blog and concerning other things philosophical and theological. Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, September 15, 2011,
In :
Politics
I damn well hope so! Looks like the Palinator has got herself in trouble. A new book out has revealed that some time ago, Sarah Palin had an affair with a basketball player, and also snorted cocaine with her husband on a snowmobiling holiday.
This is good news since one would assume that this might well dent her chances of running for US President which would be a disaster for all mankind.
Book Claims Sarah Palin Had One-Night Stand with NBA Star Glen Rice
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, September 1, 2011,
In :
Religion
I think this was originally Carrier:
When Mark says the Roman
governor Pontius Pilate had a custom of releasing a prisoner on the annual
holiday and the Jews cried for Barabbas, and to crucify Jesus in his place
(Mark 15:6-15), what we have is surely a myth and not fact.No Roman magistrate (least of all the
infamously ruthless Pilate), would let a murderous rebel go free, and no such
Roman ceremony is attested as ever having existed.But the ceremony so obviously emulates the
Jewish ritual ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, August 17, 2011,
In :
Science
The cause of lightning was once thought to be God's wrath, but turned out to be the unintelligent outcome of mindless natural forces. We once thought an intelligent being must have arranged and maintained the amazingly ordered motions of the solar system, but now we know it's all the inevitable outcome of mindless natural forces. Disease was once thought to be the mischief of supernatural demons, but now we know that tiny, unintelligent organisms are the cause, which reproduce and infect us a...
Religions tell you that you must
have faith because there is no other reason for believing! One does not need
faith where enough evidence exists. I don’t need faith that gravity will
suddenly give way because according to all my perceived observations and
experiences- gravity has never failed me or anyone else before!
Listen believers.....If there
really is a god, and there really is some ultimate truth that we humans must
know for the sake of our eternal souls, ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, August 15, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have always maintained that the
Flood myth in the bible is dependent upon the earlier Mesopotamian Gilgamesh as
a source. Tablet XI (http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab11.htm)
shows clearly that the two stories are so similar as to be beyond chance. This explicitly
illustrates how the biblical narrative cannot, in any realistic sense, be
anything like the truth. This quote from Cyrus Gordon sums it up (Cyrus H.
Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg, The Bible and the Ancie...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, August 6, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have been wondering recently,
ever since writing an essay on the meaning of life, how eternity fits in with
happiness and the meaning of life. This is because death is often seen by
philosophers as necessary to make sense of life, to give purpose to life since
we have only finite time to exist. As such, we are forced to make the most of
life and are unable to suffer the lethality of eternal boredom. Eternity
promotes boredom, and as philosophers such as Schopenhauer declare, boredom is
leth...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, July 31, 2011,
In :
Religion
The Jews definitely thought Yahweh was one god amongst many,
and an inferior one at that. I~ have already touched on this in the forum, but
it has now been lost.
In Deut 32:7-9 we have evidence that Yahweh was one of many
gods.
"Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of all
generations. (O)Ask your father, and he will inform
you,
Your elders, and they
will tell you. 8"(P)When the Most High gave the nations
their inheritance,
When He separ...
Below I've put together all thirty theses (so far) that most Christians agree on and why they are all improbable:
1) There must be a God who is a simple being yet made up of three inexplicable persons existing forever outside of time without a beginning, who therefore never learned anything new, never took a risk, never made a decision, never disagreed within the Godhead, and never had a prior moment to ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, July 19, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
I have written a new essay on Hume's approach to inductive reasoning. Have a read here and let me know what you think by commenting on this blog post. Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, July 8, 2011,
In :
Religion
When debating morality and ethics with Christian theists,
scorn is often poured on secular ethicists who adhere to moral disciplines that
are not grounded in God. Usually, these moral approaches are consequentialist
in nature. In other words, moral actions are defined by the consequences they
deliver as opposed to the intrinsic morality of the action itself. The ends
justify the means. As an example, such an approach might well be
utilitarianism. Though this appears in many guises (for exampl...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, June 19, 2011,
In :
Religion
Here is a criticism about God’s omniscience and omnipotence
based upon a point made by John D. barrow in Impossibility, drawing on the work of cognitive scientists Donald
Mackay. To put it into simple terms, it might be easier to state it as follows:
It has long been understood that with God’s omniscience, he
cannot be contrary to his own predictions. For example, if you were claimed as
being omniscient and omnipotent and you predicted beforehand that you would
make yourself spaghetti...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, June 13, 2011,
In :
Religion
Theists, the world over, claim that God is omniscient. However, this is not an easy claim to make for a whole host of reasons, one of which is worth looking into here. I want to look at the idea that in many instances, you cannot know that you don’t know something. If there is a situation where you cannot know something, then if it is claimed that you are omniscient, this would invalidate that claim.
For example, there could conceivably be something that God does not know. Conceivably, p...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, June 4, 2011,
In :
Religion
In the same discussion as the previous post was involved in, this comment by papalinton deserves a mention. It is a great summation of religion:
brdeadite99, You say, "... Atheism is not a belief system."
It is just as you say; with atheism there is no doctrine, no 'good' book, no dogma, no catechism, no organised tradition, no institutional body or theological administrative organisation underpinning the ritual and ceremony; there is no procedural observance; no service, no sacrament, no litu... Continue reading ...
I would concur that atheism is not a belief system - I think we have fairly well evinced that notion. However, is atheism not a faith statement? It would seem to me that atheism is as much of a faith statement as theism.
This is why I, although I act and intuitively see myself as an atheist, am logically an agnostic. To move from agnosticism to atheist takes faith. Faith that there is no God. Personally, the belief t...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, May 24, 2011,
In :
Books
With the release of my new book - The Little Book of Unholy Questions - I thought it would be nice to share some of the questions from the Problem of Evil section. Here goes...
1.During the 2004 tsunami where, say, 250,000
people died, would it not have been more caring of an all-loving God to have
made one less person die?
2.(One question I have seen online) What am I
supposed to be learning from my disabled son?
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, May 14, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
I was in the garden today and found a dead blackbird chick on the lawn. It was a sad sight, most probably falling out of the nest and not surviving. This made me think about the notion of life, what it is, how easy it is to lose, and whether, if souls exist, you could argue that animals don't have them.
Let me be clear, I do not believe in the notion of a soul, unless (as many do without realising it) define a soul as consciousness. I look at this bird, and got a real sense of the loss of lif... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, May 9, 2011,
In :
Books
I am pretty excited that my new book, now called 'The Little Book of Unholy Questions', will be released in the coming weeks.
I sent a review copy to Derek Murphy, author of Jesus Potter Harry Christ and he returned this review:
If you were given an exclusive, face-to-face interview with God, what would you ask him? Are you curious about what the animals ate on the ark? Why Jesus could eat fish but also walk through walls? What, exactly, are angels? In "The Little Book of Unholy Questions" J...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, May 3, 2011,
In :
Religion
I have been ruminating on what, as far
as I know, might be a new theory (which I have named the Argument from Format)
showing that either God is not omnipotent or does not exist. Bear with me, as
it might need refining, might be easily debunkable, or need changing in some
radical way. It has developed out of my section on souls in the book that I am
just getting published calledFree
Will? An investigation into whether we have free will or whether I was always
going to write this book.In
thi...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 25, 2011,
In :
Books
I have just rushed off the second part to the critique of William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith. It can be found here. Any comments abou tthe critique, please feel free to reply to this blog post. Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, April 16, 2011,
In :
Religion
I was wondering recently about
the issue of God’s foreknowledge. It has long been understood that with God’s
omniscience, he could not be contrary to his own predictions. This means that
if God predicted beforehand that he would make himself a spaghetti bolognaise
for supper on Friday, then when it came to making Friday’s supper, he would
have no choice but to make the spaghetti bolognaise. This is because if he
decided to be contrary to his own prediction and cook, say, pizza, then his...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, April 15, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
I've just finished rushing off an essay about vegetarianism and veganism. This was in response to my partner's daughter who has just decided to become a vegan. This inspired me to think about the philosophical implications of such a decision.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, April 13, 2011,
An excerpt from my upcoming book:
One fruitful theme that I wanted to explore
here was that heaven and the existence of free will without suffering and evil
is incoherent. We are often given the free will theodicy as (at least partly)
the answer to why evil exists on earth. However, if heaven can exist with free
will and no evil, then this should surely be an option on earth, especially if
God is as loving as he is purported to be. This very simple logical argument
has devastating effects on w...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Tuesday, April 12, 2011,
In :
Philosophy
I am a conceptualist who does not believe in objective
existence. The burden of proof would be on Craig to prove objective existence.
Without this, his whole argument of objective morality falls apart. This is why
he needs to debate a good philosopher who would take him to task on his
foundational assumptions.
There is no such thing as objective morality, because any
idea is subjective. Abstract ideas do not and cannot exist objectively.
It is anthropocentric. Imagine a more intellige...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, April 4, 2011,
In :
Religion
What annoys me is the fact that by now people should know how to debate Craig. Price and Ahmed pretty much tried the right tack with some success. It sounds close to ad hom, but you need to set your stall out by attacking Craig's methodology. I lie in bed at night sometimes dreaming of how I would debate Craig. This is the definition of sad, I know. He puts himself in an unassailable position in debate terms because he
1) uses a scatter-gun approach that means that you have to answer about 100... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, March 31, 2011,
In :
Religion
I think one of the many problems that Christianity faces is the lack of a systematic theology. There is no coherence across the religion and across the bible. The responsibility of this lies on the lap of an all powerful and system designing god. And this itself is incoherent with such a god as defined by Christians.
What I mean by this is a religion that has 32,000 denominations that argue to toss over different aspects of theology, different core beliefs and so on is, to me at least, an obvi... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, March 25, 2011,
In :
Religion
There are some very powerful and
simple arguments to indicate that this universe is far more likely NOT to be
the result of [the Christian] God.
This should be done in terms of explanatory scope:the
hypothesis explains many facts, not just one or two, and why this universe
exists and not some other, why these properties and not others.
And explanatory power:the
hypothesis explains the facts with high probability. Ie, given that explanation
as a fact we would very likely, or even expect...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Friday, March 25, 2011,
In :
Books
William Lane Craig is very famous for his seminal classic "Reasonable Faith" - an apologetic that unashamedly defends Christianity supposedly in a very reason-based manner.
I am in the process of critiquing the book in detail. However, it is slow-going. As a result, and insipred by a conversation on the Amazon review I made of this book, I have put the first part of the critique on the website here: http://atipplingphilosopher.yolasite.com/book-reviews.php.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, March 14, 2011,
In :
Science
Recently, I have been thinking about evolution. Not unusual for me. Many apologists attack evolution, and attack the notion that species can evolve into new species, and that there is no transitional fossil evidence for X,Y and Z. However, what they do not realise is that there is no such thing as a species. Objectively, such an idea does not exist.
'Species' is a label that we humans have attached to groups of organisms that we see common characteristics between. We also tend to attach arbit...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, February 23, 2011,
In :
TV
I have been watching the final series of the much acclaimed LOST. I have enjoyed ABC's series in some ways. It tries to grapple with philosophical subtexts and bring them to a wider audience, which is no bad thing. However, it is often utterly incoherent requiring you to unpick it (unsuccessfully) in a manner which should be unnecessary for a well-thought out piece.
Aside from the scatter-gun approach of firing off half-philosophies and theologies in a random manner, I have one major gripe. On... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Sunday, February 6, 2011,
In :
Science
James Delingpole is a Cilmate Sceptic who writes blogs for the Telegraph. He is politically and philosophically, and unashamedly, very right-wing. Unfortunately, this presupposition of the veracity of his political stance over and above his willingness to deal with real science, means that he has come to conclude (before properly assessing anything that remotely looks like evidence) that climate change is happening, certainly under the causal influences of man and man's activities.
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Monday, November 29, 2010,
In :
Politics
I'm not really sure it is a good idea for Wikileaks to have done what they did this weekend and to have released a massive amount of top secret stuff. By doing this they are implicitly saying:
There is nothing within the realms of politics and reality that should remain secret. Everything should be available to the public.
This is dangerous thinking. It assumes the public have the knowledge, understanding and sense to treat the leaks appropriately. Moreover, some things in life need to be kept ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Thursday, November 25, 2010,
This site is currently under construction. Hopefully it will soon act as a conduit of ideas and communication between myself and the outside world. Blogs are essentially mechanisms for vanity. Me me me! As a result, the content here will not be so much about me as about ideas and philosophical ponderings.