Can you blame them? This was the rhetorical question I heard recently, posed by a speaker at a Conference of religious studies teachers that I attended. The answer to the question was supposed to be No, and most of the audience seemed to take this to be the correct answer. Nor is this atypical It’s […]
Entries Tagged as 'Bad Reasoning'
On alleged Victim’s of Church abuse… “Can you blame them?”…. “Yes I can”
April 18th, 2018 Comments Off on On alleged Victim’s of Church abuse… “Can you blame them?”…. “Yes I can”
Divine Command Theory and The Masked Man Fallacy
October 8th, 2017 10 Comments
In almost every talk I give on divine command theory someone in the audience inevitably will interpret me as saying that atheists can’t believe in moral requirements and will cite the fact unbelievers can know what’s right and wrong as a reason to reject the theory. This happens even when I have spent some time […]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Epistemology · Paul Kurtz · Richard Carrier · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong · William Lane Crai
Ed Feser reviews Jerry Coyne
July 7th, 2016 1 Comment
Over at First Thing’s, Edward Feser has an interesting, but characteristically scathing review of Jerry Coyne’s book Faith vs Fact: Why Religion and Science Are Incompatible.
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Is a Divine Command Theory Psychotic? Sam Harris on Divine Commands Part III
November 5th, 2013 2 Comments
In Sam Harris on Divine Commands Part I I criticised Harris’ characterisation of divine command meta-ethics. I refuted Harris’ contention a divine command theory is pscyopathic in Is a Divine Command Theory Pscyopathic? Sam Harris on Divine Commands: Part II. In this last post in this series, I will address Harris’s contention that a divine command theory reflects […]
Tags: Debates · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural? · Religion and Violence · Sam Harris · William Lane Craig
Ad Hominens, Special Pleading, Straw Men & Red Herrings: John Loftus’ Response to MandM
October 3rd, 2013 26 Comments
John Loftus has written a response to my post “There Probably are no Duties. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life!” Before turning to Loftus’ critique, let me recap my argument. While my post was satirical, it was intended to make a serious point. This being that many common and influential critiques of theism are […]
Tags: John Loftus · Outsider Test for Faith · Slavery
Is a Divine Command Theory Pscyopathic? Sam Harris on Divine Commands: Part II
June 25th, 2013 11 Comments
In my last post, Sam Harris on Divine Commands: Part I, I criticised Sam Harris’ characterisation of divine command meta-ethics. In this post I want to turn to his second line of criticism of a Divine Command Theory. In Harris’ debate with William Lane Craig at Notre Dame, transcript here, Harris stated: “I’m glad he raised the […]
Tags: Debates · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural? · Religion and Violence · Sam Harris · William Lane Craig
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
An Interesting Comparison
February 4th, 2016 5 Comments
This from Occupy Democrats: This from the Unites States Founding Fathers: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature […]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Christian History · Declaration of Independence