Deep Dive

A collection of 1068 posts

agnosticism

New Britian Uncovered Survey, including on religion

The Guardian reports this extremely interesting set of British attitudinal survey results. Check the ones on religion out:   Religion Which of the following religions or belief systems, if any, do you associate with? Church of England = 33% Catholicism = 10% Other Christian = 9% Islam = 3% Hinduism = 2% Judaism = 1% Other religion

determinism

My appearance on The Big Questions on free will on You Tube

What it says on the tin: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L5XbuxKNI8[/youtube] A massive frustration in the lack of defining the terms led to a meandering discussion. I am the one with large mutton chops sitting on the right, next to the Calvinist.

determinism

My response on free will to a fellow philosophy group member

I have been having a long-standing argument with a relative newcomer to our pub philosophy group (The Tippling Philosophers) over free will. He believes in libertarian free will, though it does appear to be largely based on an argument from wishful thinking and being unwilling to confront the ramifi

determinism

My Appearance on BBC 1’s The Big Questions Today

It finally came to pass as the producers liked the cut of my jib when they phoned me to ask me about my views on free will; a sort of a test run to see if I sounded OK. I passed.

crime

The Quarantine Approach to Crime and Punishment

As a determinist who believes that free will is an illusion, the argument over whether we have libertarian free will or not is somewhat passé. The interesting debates happen over whether we have moral responsibility or not, what any ramifications of this would be, and what approaches we should have

Featured ATP

FOX stoop to new lows

Urghhh. This was so painful to watch. They should be had up in court for misinforming and mischaracterising. This is evil propaganda of the worst sort. What can be done about it? It's so depressing that such a widely watched channel can spew forth such vitriolic nonsense. I

atheism

Real Deconvserion Story #10 - ML Candelario

Here is another account in my series of real-life deconversion stories. They are often painful, psychological affairs, as you can see from the various accounts. ML Candelario was put on to me by contributor Cody Rudisill who has posted the occasional article. I thank MLC for his contribution. Please check

BBC

Clarkson should do one. I have no time for him.

Jeremy Clarkson, right wing pundit and presenter on the ever popular everyman BBC TV money spinner car show, Top Gear, has not had his contract renewed. He has always been controversial, and the last incident was the brick that broke the weary camel's back. He has a long line of things he has got up

Featured ATP

Guest Post: God's Love Should Be Superior To Man's

This is a guest post by Little Fire who submitted through a friend. An interesting little twist on the idea of God's love: WHY? Why Is God's Love Conditional? Love is different for everyone because we all put different conditions or expectations on the ones we love -- consciously and unconscio

Crime & Punishment

Utah to resume use of firing squad for executions

WTF? BBC (video available from there): Utah will resume the use of firing squads to carry out the death penalty when lethal injections drugs are not available. Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed the measure into law on Monday. The move makes Utah the only US state to use firing squads

extremism

Ali Rizvi Exposes Muslims’ Double Standard About “Hate Speech”

The Friendly Atheist has an excellent short piece which utterly destroys liberal and moderate Muslims in their case for Islam being a religion of peace. It is not that, as I have shown here, and due mainly to this. The problem stems from the core text, the Qu'ran. And you can't really be a Muslim an

abstracts

Abortion and Personhood

I have made sticky (sent to the top of the blog post list)  the post Andreas Schueler wrote about the biological aspects of personhood, life and thus the ramifications on views on abortion. The post is excellent and reflects issues with nominalism and realism: how we attach abstract, conceptual labels

Featured ATP

Reminder: UKIP's Farage was childhood "racist" and "fascist"

I can't believe I had forgotten this, or perhaps it never passed my radar. Apparently UKIP aren't a racist party, even though theor supporters and members are empirically more racist and intolerant than all other main parties, even though it seems that a councillor activist puts their foot in their

Featured ATP

Satan as God's Management Executive

God is supposed to be omnipotent. You know, all powerful, almighty. The great-making characteristics of such a god are the paragon of abilities. He could achieve anything at the metaphorical click of his fingers. So what the hell is Satan still doing hanging around? Well, of course, he doesn't ex

extremism

US-Bangladesh blogger Avijit Roy hacked to death

Attackers in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka have hacked to death a US-Bangladeshi blogger whose writings on religion angered Islamist hardliners. Avijit Roy, an atheist who advocated secularism, was attacked as he walked back from a book fair with his wife, who was also hurt in the attack.

Featured ATP

Left-wing people less likely to hurt others

A new piece of research has come out which looks to take the landmark Milgram experiments to the next level of analysis. The Milgram experiment showed that people could just be following orders when being harmful to others? As wiki states: The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was

atheism

Chapel Hill: Perspective

I admittedly don't know an awful lot about the incident at Chapel Hill whereby an atheist gunned down three Muslims. As a skeptic, questions automatically come to mind, such as, given the notion that a lack of belief in a deity isn't really enough content as a proposition to cause any action other t

capitalism

On the Skepticism of Free Market Economics (part 3): free market success stories

Buckle up, this is another sizeable piece... In this series looking skeptically at libertarian claims of free market capitalism being the holy grail of all of reality, I have come to the section where I cast a skeptical eye over some of the more common claims of libertarians. The claim appears to

capitalism

On the Skepticism of Free Market Economics (part 2): No True Capitalism

Perhaps I should call this article the No True Capitalism Apart From When It Suits ME. As I shall explain. I have written a previous and lengthy piece to this debunking certain myths and pointing out certain problems with free market economics in its most fundamental ideal. This is all a result o

Featured ATP

Are religious people kinder? I'm skeptical...

I have told you before that Reasonable Doubts is my favourite podcast. Well, here is a great RD Extra podcast with Luke Galen, psychologist, looks skeptically at claims of religious people being kinder, more charitable, prosocial. So very worth a listen:

Bart Ehrman

On the Skepticism of the Resurrection (part 4) - naturalistic explanations

As mentioned in my previous posts, someone in Malawi is about to have a debate on national TV with a Christian about the Resurrection accounts and I have been asked to help provide some ideas for the debate, so here goes. There are three aspects to the debunking of the Resurrection: 1) The Gospe

atheism

Stephen Fry and the "utterly monstrous God"

Stephen Fry so articulately nails his  answer here. You can feel the emotion.

Naturalism

In defence of Methodological Naturalism

I am having a debate elsewhere with a fellow Tippling Philosopher and just rushed out this response. Might as well double it up here. He is arguing that science might not have the answer, that a supernatural explanation should not be ruled out. He stated:

Robert Ingersoll

A little Ingersoll for you

Robert Green Ingersoll was a truly great thinker. You can find a great deal of awesome content from him on the superlative theingersolltimes.com website. Please check it out, and send its curator your appreciation for putting it together. Something for your Monday:

morality

Animals and morality

Fans de Waal is a crucial figure in the research into morality, fairness, reciprocal altruism and suchlike within the realm of primates and other animals. Here is a great summary of much of the work he is involved in: [youtube]http://youtu.be/GcJxRqTs5nk[/youtube]