Scott B. Rae (Zondervan Publishing House: December, 1995)
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This Christian introduction to ethics familiarizes both seminary and secular university students with basic processes of ethical decision-making. Updated with a new chapter on the ethical issues involved in genetic technologies.
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This is in effect an anthology of selected writings dealing with the science vs. creationism issue. The author starts with Bishop Paley's famous blind watchmaker argument for a creator and brings the arguments up to date. As other reviewers have noted, the quality of the reading depends in some cases on the original author. However, Ruse has done a good job of including a variety of styles and levels, and a complete reading should give you a good overview of the arguments over the years. This makes a good reference book or a good reader for someone trying to familiarize themselves with the controversy. The extensive philosophical analysis of the trial arguments are indeed fascinating.
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OneWorld.net is a unique source of world news drawing its stories from thousands of non-profit organizations working toward humanitarian ends around the world.
"Introduction" in Modern Philosophy of Mind (Everyman: 1995), p. iv.
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Physicalism] seem[s] to be in tune with the scientific materialism of the twentieth century because it [is] a harmonic of the general theme that all there is in the universe is matter and energy and motion and that humans are a product of the evolution of species just as much as buffaloes and beavers are. Evolution is a seamless garment with no holes wherein souls might be inserted from above.
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I'm an ex-Christian, but I think some part of me still clings to Christianity in a very loose, irrational sense, but I do not believe anymore and consider myself an Agnostic Atheist. I think spirituality is a personal thing and should be between the individual and whatever he or she chooses to focus on. In that regard, I respect others views regardless of whether or not I agree with them. I simply do not experience anything in my life that I would identify as God, but wouldn't ignore a grand revelation."
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Tagline: Analyses of God beliefs, atheism, religion, faith, miracles,
evidence for religious claims, evil and God, arguments for and against
God, atheism, agnosticism, the role of religion in society, and related
issues.
The question has been raised whether it is correct to ascribe "objective morality" to divine command theories of ethics, or more broadly, theologically grounded ethics. The point is made that if morality is grounded in God, it is grounded in a person, that is to say, in a subject. Isn't that precisely what we mean by "subjective morality"? This is a question I had asked myself, and had decided that a better term of art for theologically grounded ethics is "transcendent morality". Increasingly, I am inclined to think the assignation of "objective" is just as apt. The key is to identify what in theistic ethics ultimately grounds the good. The answer to that question, for most theists, is not the affective or , but rather the immutable nature of God. This location of the grounds of the good emerges consistently when the Euthyphro dilemma is pressed. the insistence that theologically grounded ethics be cast into the subjective pile of metaethical theories seems to me unfounded. The key is in what, exactly, the good is grounded.
E.J. Lowe and A. Rami, eds. (McGill-Queen's University Press: May, 2009), 262 pages.
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Truth depends in some sense on reality. But it is a rather delicate matter to spell this intuition out in a plausible and precise way. According to the theory of truth-making this intuition implies that either every truth or at least every truth of a certain class of truths has a so-called truth-maker, an entity whose existence accounts for truth. This book aims to provide several ways of assessing the correctness of this controversial claim. This book presents a detailed introduction to the theory of truth-making, which outlines truth-maker relations, the ontological category of truth-making entities, and the scope of a truth-maker theory. The essays brought together here represent the most important articles on truth-making in the last three decades as well as new essays by leading researchers in the field of the theory of truth and of truth-making. ~ Book Description
Russ Shafer-Landau (Oxford University Press: July, 2005), 332 pages.
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Shafer-Landau defends
non-naturalist moral realism. Moral realism is the thesis there are
objective moral facts. In other words, it is the thesis that there are
moral facts, and they are not constituted by what any actual or
possible person (or any actual or possible group of persons) thinks,
feels, believes, etc. Shafer-Landau argues that these objective moral
facts are non-natural facts. The moral facts are sui generis, and in
particular they are not a sort of natural facts. His non-naturalism
also includes a thesis about moral language: that it cannot be analyzed
into the language of the natural or social sciences. In
explaining his position, Shafer-Landau emphasizes that it does not
commit him to the existence of strange, inexplicable moral stuff. His
position is that the moral facts are wholly constituted by non-moral
(probably wholly natural) facts, though they are not identical to any
non-moral facts. This rests on a form of property pluralism according
to which moral properties, though not identical to non-moral
properties, are realized by non-moral properties. Things have moral
properties that are not identical to natural properties, and therefore
moral facts (i.e. facts about which things have which moral properties)
are wholly constituted by natural facts but are not themselves natural
facts. ~ ctdreyer at Amazon.com
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The Case for Christ records Lee Strobel's attempt to "determine if there's credible evidence that Jesus of Nazareth really is the Son of God." The book consists primarily of interviews between Strobel (a former legal editor at the Chicago Tribune) and biblical scholars such as Bruce Metzger. Each interview is based on a simple question, concerning historical evidence (for example, "Can the Biographies of Jesus Be Trusted?"), scientific evidence, ("Does Archaeology Confirm or Contradict Jesus' Biographies?"), and "psychiatric evidence" ("Was Jesus Crazy When He Claimed to Be the Son of God?"). Together, these interviews compose a case brief defending Jesus' divinity, and urging readers to reach a verdict of their own. ~ Amazon.com