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I've realized I have a problem with writing this blog, apart from lack of time and a general aversion to the genre. What should I write about? The natural impulse is to write about what I'm thinking about, what I'm working on. But there are two reasons against this: (i) I don't want to write poor formulations of ideas that need a lot more space and time to formulate well, and (ii) I don't want to put my new ideas into the blogosphere where they can become anybody's property but mine. So I need to write about something less central to my intellectual concerns--but that just isn't very appealing. I end up writing about things that have caught my fancy recently or that I think might be helpful to people (boring!). Or else I just talk about tennis, which is fine by me but not perhaps of interest to most readers of this "intellectual" blog.
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In our after hours discussions, my good friend Andy and I keep circling back to the Moral Argument for God, in part because of Andy's fustration with theists who think it obvious that without God, objective morality cannot be grounded. After all, nontheists have offered a multitude of proposals for objective morality apart from God. The moral relativism that typified Modernism and atheism for much of the twentieth century is nowadays less a given, and though nontheists are divided about whether morality is objective, those who argue that it is cannot be simply ignored or dismissed. Michael Martin raises this very objection to William Lane Craig's rendition of the Moral Argument in his critique of the Craig/Flew debate. "In order to show that atheistic morality necessarily is subjective, it must be shown that all attempts to ground objective morality on a non-theistic basis fail."1 Martin is surely correct, insofar as the philosophical argument goes, but given the time constraints of a debate, Craig's placing the onus of proposing such a theory on his opponent is probably defensible. And perhaps that burden of proof applies more generally, since historically relativism and subjectivism have been advanced along polytheistic, pantheistic, or atheistic lines, whereas monotheism has consistently assumed that morality is objective, Euthyphro notwithstanding. As luck would have it, Andy is happy to shoulder that burden and propose such a moral theory. Following the lead of Shelly Kagan, he argues that Kantianism fits the bill. Andy's goal is modest: to sketch a plausible and objective ethical theory that makes no reference to God and, in so doing, to negate the presumption that theism is uniquely able to ground objective moral truths. I am far from being able to defend a fully developed metaethics of my own, but it seems to me that Kant's ethics are, in the first place, something less than a metaethical theory, and secondly, not so easily torn from the theistic fabric into which he wove them. A caveat is in order. I am at the beginning of the long journey required to fully understand the nuances and implications of Kant and the vast literature in his wake. I beg mercy for any obvious misunderstandings that follow.
Kai Nielsen (Prometheus Books: September 2005), 245 pages.
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The indeterminacy of the modern concept of God has made the distinction between belief and unbelief increasingly problematic. Both the complexity of the religious response and the variety of skeptical philosophies preclude simplistic definitions of what constitutes belief in God. Making the discussion even more difficult are assertions by fundamentalists who dismiss the philosophical perplexities of religious claims as unreal pseudo-problems. Atheism & Philosophy is a detailed study of these and other issues vital to our understanding of atheism, agnosticism, and religious belief. Philosopher Kai Nielsen develops a coherent and integrated approach to the discussion of what it means to be an atheist. In chapters such as "How is Atheism to be Characterized?", "Does God Exist?: Reflections on Disbelief," "Agnosticism," "Religion and Commitment," and "The Primacy of Philosophical Theology," Nielsen defends atheism in a way that answers to contemporary concerns. ~ Product Description
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (Oxford University Press: June 1998)
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Represents Nietzsche's attempt to sum up his philosophy. Returning to a favorite theme, he offers a wealth of fresh insights into what he saw as the self-destructive urge of Christianity, the prevalence of "slave moralities" and the terrible dangers in the pursuit of philosophical or scientific truth.
Phillip E. Johnson and Denis O. Lamoureux, et al. (Regent: September 1, 1999)
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In this provocative book, evolutionist Denis O. Lamoureux — a charismatic evangelical Christian who holds PhD degrees in both theology and biology — challenges some of Johnson's ideas about how Christians ought to respond to theories of biological evolution. Johnson, in turn, responds to his criticisms. The debate is assessed by several scientists, including well known contributors to the origins debate: Michael Behe, Michael Denton and Howard Van Till. Rikki E. Watts and Loren Wilkinson conclude the book by offering biblical and theological insights to the discussion.
Norman L. Geisler (Baker Academic: Mar 1, 1988), 400 pages.
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This book is a standard apologetics textbook in many seminaries and schools in the U.S.. This is so for many good and obvious reasons. First, Geisler is well known and considered by many to be one of the greatest apologists of this century. Second, the contents of this book are so thorough and concise that there is actually no other book that has been published before or after this one that could be considered a viable rival. This is not to say that there are no other great apologetic texts out there. But there are very few that match this one. Geisler covers every imaginable worldview, describes the view, and proceeds to defend the Christian faith in light of the opposing view at hand. The book is philosophically rigorous, and laid out in a systematic fashion that helps the reader keep organized while tackling the many beliefs that stem from each of the views covered. Geisler covers rationalism, agnosticism, fideism, experientialism, evidentialism, pragmatism, combinationalism, deism, pantheism, panentheism, atheism, theism, etc. He has a chapter that is devoted to the formulation of adequate tests for truth, and then a section that details Christian apologetics from History to the deity and authority of Christ. This is why this book has been a standard text for classes all over the country in the area apologetics. I cannot recommend this book enough! ~ T. B. Vick at Amazon.com
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English ethicist Jonathan Glover begins with the now commonplace observation that the last 100 years were perhaps the most brutal in all history. But the problem wasn't that human nature suddenly took a sharp turn for the worse: "It is a myth that barbarism is unique to the twentieth century: the whole of human history includes wars, massacres, and every kind of torture and cruelty," he writes. Technology has made a huge difference, but psychology has remained the same — and this is what Glover seeks to examine, through discussions of Nietzsche, the My Lai atrocity in Vietnam, Hiroshima, tribal genocide in Rwanda, Stalinism, Nazism, and so on. There is much history here, but Humanity is fundamentally a book of philosophy. In his first chapter, for instance, Glover announces his goal "to replace the thin, mechanical psychology of the Enlightenment with something more complex, something closer to reality." But he also seeks "to defend the Enlightenment hope of a world that is more peaceful and more humane, the hope that by understanding more about ourselves we can do something to create a world with less misery." The result is an odd combination of darkness and light — darkness because the subject matter of the 20th century's moral failings is so bleak, light because of Glover's earnest optimism, which insists that "keeping the past alive may help to prevent atrocities".
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Edited by Jeremy Stangroom, TPM is the online doppelgänger of The Philosopher's Magazine. Articles from the print edition are all available to read online. The TPM Blog also includes regular philosophical reflections and links to philosophical articles are featured in "Latest Philosophy News". Philosophy rarely escapes the domain of academic journals and books, and TPM is much appreciated as an accessible trough of food for thought, not the least of which for making its articles freely available.
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Day after day, millions of Americans who frequent pews see ghosts when they pick up their newspapers or turn on television news. They read stories that are important to their lives, yet they seem to catch fleeting glimpses of other characters or other plots between the lines. There seem to be other ideas or influences hiding there. One minute they are there. The next they are gone. There are ghosts in there, hiding in the ink and the pixels. Something is missing in the basic facts or perhaps most of the key facts are there, yet some are twisted. Perhaps there are sins of omission, rather than commission.