Many people admire Peter Singer’s consistent and easy to follow utilitarian ethics. Add to that his clear communication style and a commitment to helping those in need and you see why he is a very popular and public philosopher. But … Continue reading
Monthly Archives: September 2012
Verbatim, Diana West: “It’s important to realize sharia’s prohibition of criticism of Islam is basic Islam: There is nothing “radical” about it. Indeed, it is this basic Islamic censorship that is at the crux of why Islam itself — not … Continue reading
Stanley Fish is no friend of objective truth but this article at the New York Times sympathetically teases out the gulf in understanding between western liberal thinking and those Muslims who turned to violence in Libya. It’s not enough for … Continue reading
Relevant Magazine warns that Christian apologetics is in danger of avoiding the F-word. It’s a caution to those Christians (like me) who enjoy a good philosophical stoush. |Difficulty: Easy |Subjects: Apologetics | Reading time: 3 min | … Continue reading
Tolerance just ain’t what it used to be. This essay at Standpoint magazine by Melanie Phillips ranges back into western history to challenge the politically correct fundamentalist religions of our day. Here’s a taste: “Scientism, materialism, environmentalism and all the … Continue reading
For the slightly philosophically inclined miller of grist, this is an excellent review of Alvin Plantinga’s Where the conflict really lies. It’s in the New York Review of Books and it’s excellent because it is written by a top philosopher … Continue reading
In case you haven’t heard the media beat-up, it’s on its way: a late 4th century papyrus fragment talks about Jesus’ wife. Here’s a quick response from John Dickson. And one from another New Testament scholar, Mark Goodacre. And another … Continue reading
Maverick Philosopher has some interesting thoughts on the preconditions for atheism based on his reflections on the following quotation: “He alone can be an atheist who has never experienced a glimpse, or who has been caught and become embedded in … Continue reading
“For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that Christianity is not the product of any one culture but is actually the transcultural truth of God. If that were the case we would expect that it would contradict and offend every … Continue reading
Lawrence Krauss is popular in New Atheist circles. He’s a cosmologist who recently published A Universe From Nothing in which he claims that the universe came into being from ‘nothing’. The trouble is, he redefines ‘nothing’ so it is what … Continue reading
Addiction is an in-your-face word for dependency, and dependency is an in-your-face word for all those things that control me. And control is a strong word for daily habits I fall into of eating or not eating, drinking or not … Continue reading
David Chalmers is a world-leading Australian philosopher in the area of consciousness. Here’s a video where he says that consciousness is unnecessary from an evolutionary perspective. A naturalistic view says that everything about life ought to be explainable on evolutionary … Continue reading
One of the main authors I am looking at in my doctorate is Hans-Georg Gadamer, the ‘father of philosophical hermeneutics’. As a mature age student, I’m so encouraged that Gadamer wrote his major work at 60 years old and was … Continue reading
Okay: it depends on what you understand by work-life balance. But if that’s Newspeak for having your cake and eating it too then it’s time to get real. It’s simple maths: average mum and dad have time and emotional energy … Continue reading