a tippling philosopher

Showing Tag: "natural" (Show all posts)

New video on naturalism vs supernaturalism

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Wednesday, February 1, 2012, In : Philosophy 

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One of my favourite analogies.

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...
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Natural oughts? Is there such a thing as natural?

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?

 

Or, indeed, is it ...


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Arguments against the existence of the soul

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?

Enjoy.

 
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The Human Soul: A simple category error.

Posted by Jonathan Pearce on Saturday, November 5, 2011, In : Philosophy 

Atlanta Atheism Examiner

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Evolution, Natural Selection, True Beliefs, Stephen Law and Plantinga's EANN

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...
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Richard Carrier's excellent argument against supernaturalism

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...


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God as an explanation

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...


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LOST - it has issues

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...
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