General

A collection of 155 posts

blogging

How you can help SIN and ATP

Here at the Skeptic Ink Network, A Tippling Philosopher is doing quite well as a blog, thanks to main to some of you dedicated readers. I just thought I would throw out a request for a bit of further support which shouldn't be too demanding. First of all:

Debate

The Rules of Discussion

Love this:

General

On comment moderation

Spoiler: I might swear. I have a fairly liberal attitude to commenting here, and I don't particularly police it that much. Dissenting views are utterly vital to being sure that you are warranted in your own beliefs and views. Well, I got involved in a comment thread on the Possible Worlds blog

twitter

Follow me on Twitter

Go on, you know you want to:   https://twitter.com/ATipplingPhilo or @ATipplingPhilo

determinism

Sci Phi Show on free will and foreknowledge

I am just about to listen to this but have not yet. H/T Skepticule podcast for this! Let me know what you think. It is the Sci Phi Show with a short episode Foreknowledge, Free Will and Cassandra. Here are the details of the show: On this episode of

atheism

A true hymn - a reminder of how good this is

Frank Turner is an alternative folk musician who is fairly famous over here in the UK. If you want to read a cracking interview with him, I interviewed him about a year ago on his politics and religion.

General

Sorry for the intermittent signal....

We are moving over to new and better hosts and are experiencing some technical difficulties. Stay with us, folks!

General

My friend has designed and created a card game

Well, technically he's my mate's brother. But Tom Norfolk has designed a battling card game called Satk Bots. Here are the pertinent details: Stak Bots is a new and exciting vertical battling card game, suitable for older kids through to strategy craving adults. * Utilise 16 unique

General

Bloggers and Redditors, use this subreddit to promote!

To those of you who use Reddit and who run blogs, you know people don;t like other posting their own content. Well, fear not, Staks Rosch of SIN has created his own subreddit for everyone to use. Peruse the links and post your own. Please use it! CreativeAtheists! http:

God's characteristics

God as an Abstraction, Squeezed out from our World and Universe

Whilst on holiday I finished reading John Loftus’ The Outsider Test for Faith which I greatly enjoyed and will be reviewing in a short while. There is much to talk about within the pages, not least some of the excellent quotes he has gathered from other writers which he uses to defend his own positi

conversion

I'm back from holiday, and the only person who pissed me off was Jesus...

So we (my partner, twin toddler boys and myself) had a wonderful stay-cation in Cornwall. Beautiful accomodation, weather, countryside and beaches. An all-round winner. The boys loved it. The only moment of furrowed brows (well, mine) was at a lovely seaside town called Perranporth, where we stopped

John Loftus

John Loftus leaves SIN

It comes with some great surprise and sadness that John Loftus has decided to leave the Skeptic Ink Network, a platform which he co-founded with Ed Clint for which we are all exceptionally grateful. As you surely know, John is the author of some superb books, one of which I am due to soon review (Th

General

2-3 day hiatus - Aaaarrrgh my school is being inspected!!

So, every four years, my life comes to a grinding and formidable halt. People have nervous breakdowns around me. I work through the night. I think and breathe teaching. And then it passes. But until it passes, I will be bricking myself for the next two days. Apologies for not

Skepticism

Don't forget SINergy!

Don't forget the awesome resource that is SINergy - the home of all the media associated with the various members and contributors to the Skeptic Ink Network. Check it out for great interviews, debates and lectures amongst other things. Whether it be video, radio or written media, there

evolution

Oldest Evidence of Split Between Old World Monkeys and Apes: Primate Fossils Are 25 Million Years Old

Science Daily: May 15, 2013 — Two fossil discoveries from the East African Rift reveal new information about the evolution of primates, according to a study published online in Nature this week led by Ohio University scientists. The team's findings document the oldest fossils of two major groups of

General

World's smallest movie - in atoms!

IBM, in researching data storage, have messed about with some atoms. You can see this only by magnifying some 100 million times. So cool... http://youtu.be/oSCX78-8-q0

General

Offer for you to guest post

In the interests of getting a variety of voices and interests here, I would like to offer a Sunday(ish) guest post. If you have something interesting you would like to say, and can put together a decent post that fits into the rather broad remit of this site, then

General

Philosophy 101 (philpapers induced) #3 - Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?

So having posted the Philpapers survey results, the biggest ever survey of philosophers conducted in 2009, several readers were not aware of it (the reason for re-communicating it) and were unsure as to what some of the questions were. I offered to do a series on them, so here it is – Philosophy 101

atheism

Quotes to keep you company #1

I thought I'd give you a selection of some jolly nice quotations:   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

media

SINergy, SIN's new media channel, launches

We are trying to stay ahead of the game, as a network. Thinking about how we could provide our readers with as much content and resources, we have developed a channel here at our SIN headquarters.

General

First Objective Measure of Pain Discovered in Brain Scan Patterns

Pain is a really important notion in conversations about subjective experience and qualia. I'll have to think about how this might or might not affect ideas of the hard problem of consciousness. As ever, Science Daily reports: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="300&

Jehovah's Witnesses

When the Jehovah's Witnesses came over...

So there I was, stark bollock naked, having just had a shower. Not probably what you were expecting from this post, for sure. The door bell rang, and my partner answered. I kept half an ear open, intrigued as to who it might be. I heard words like "...my

General

Russell Blackford joins us at SIN - please welcome him!

Philosopher Russell Blackford, author (editor) of the awesome book 50 Voices of Disbelief, has joined the writing team here at SIN. This is great news, given Blackford's great work and high profile in the world of philosophy of religion. Or lack thereof. His personal website can be found

General

My debate with on the Nativity with apologist Randal Rauser now available

My pre-recorded debate with Randal Rauser, a Christian apologist from Canada, is now available. Let me know what you think, please. It is my first debate, and hopefully not my last! The format was a 20 minute opened, 15 minute rebuttal, 7 minute second rebuttal, another 5 minuter and then a 2 min

General

Using dictation

This is something of a random post. I am writing this as a test for my new piece of software. I have just bought, for work purposes, a new piece of software which is called Dragon naturally speaking. This software allows me to dictate to the computer via a microphone