Glen D

Thanks Reg!  (Bit of local snowmageddon took out the WiFi for a bit)

“because it fits in with the protective warrior alpha male who wants to spread his seed vs. the submissive female who needs protection”

the behaviour of some mammals

I don’t think the females have much say in the matter.  The mammals are our closest relatives, the great apes.  We evolved from the same recent stock as them.  If you think about…[Read more]

Evil doesn’t care about arbitrary religious divisions and it wears many collars. What makes it evil is the fact that is exists in the midst of what normal people see a good. All religions are the same. The stories have been incessant over the last 25 years.

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people d…[Read more]

@Simon

We’re terribly lacking in data on the topic of sexual assault. It does happen by women but its so uncommon each case is very notable. The problem is rape is barely even reported in many societies (and is even partially serialized in a couple cultures like in a tribe in Papua New Guinea where boys felate adults to “gain the essence of…[Read more]

Muslim women talk about sex abuse by the religious.

What an interesting article.  Why do the abusers always seem to be men?  Maybe because they’re the ones in positions of power.  But it seems that patriarchy and sexual abuse are inextricably linked.  I put this down to the idea that the Patriarchy is a social, cooperativised continuation of the…[Read more]

I was going to ask what was wrong with this article by a Liar for Jesus

The original article, in “Answers in Genesis”, is ridiculous.  For example, we’re back to this:

Many atheists (e.g., Richard Dawkins) spend much of their time railing against the Creator they believe doesn’t exist

I imagine that Dawkins is railing against the Biblical God, an…[Read more]

Have a great week everyone!

“We have barely emerged from centuries of barbarism. It’s not a surprise that there are shocking inequities in this world. It is hard work to climb down out of the trees and walk upright and build a viable global civilization when you start with technology that is made of rocks and sticks and fur. This is a project, a…[Read more]

Makes sense.  Somebody called evolutionary anthropology “philosophising with data”.

You cannot say one is the study of this and one is the study of that. You can only say the methods that they use to study their subjects. Both the sciences and philosophy deal with ideas (to different degrees) and mostly science but in many methods of inquiry by philosophers deal with “things”.

In some sciences they use the scientific method…[Read more]

Surely, science is the study of things, and philosophy is the study of ideas.  But since ideas are about things, the two can cross over and inform each other.

I actually think the article is reasonable – it was unfamiliar territory at first, but now I understand it – up until here:

There is also mounting evidence of fine-tuning in evolutionary biology, predetermining the course of the development of life.

God is also required to explain immaterial aspects of the universe, such as consciousness,…

[Read more]

You need “to walk in their shoes” before you can fully criticize their ideas or build upon them. by walking their ideas forward with your own shoes on.

I think it’s necessary to fully understand ideas before we criticise them or build on them.  That’s why a muddled writer is not doing us a gift when they don’t explain their ideas clearly.

@ Davis, I agree with what you say so you have saved me some writing. As I mentioned before it was Hegel who said that the study of philosophy is but the introduction to philosophy.

To be a good physicist who can learn the theory of relativity without learning about the life and times of Einstein or how his thought process worked. Not so with a…[Read more]

Can you find anything wrong with this argument for belief in god being rational?

I don’t think the article really mentions philosophy or philosophers in general. He is disingenuous when he argues that both Plato and Aristotle held that the existence of God to be logically reasoned.

What annoys me with these arguments – as I have argued in ano…[Read more]

There is absolutely NO doubt that there are terrible disaster branches of philosophy. Especially post-modernesque writers. Some (and only SOME) who deal with feminist/LGTB/colonialist/black studies can also defy comprehension. While you certainly don’t find as much stupid writing…you still find it in psychology and economics and even in the…[Read more]

Can you find anything wrong with this argument for belief in god being rational?

When an idea is presented clearly, it’s a thing of joy.  I know there are plenty of clear-thinking philosophers around.  I’m wondering if Will Jones at The Conservative Woman is one of them.  I find his article unreadable, whereas the Patheos article is very clear, ev…[Read more]

 They [philosophers] just seem to talk crap, in other words.

This is something you regularly have to put up with in the study of philosophy. Think of people who say this, as the sort of “far-right” loud mouth know it alls of the hyper-rationalists. It doesn’t matter…you know…that it was philosophers who very well set up the whole concept of…[Read more]

The adversarial culture in philosophy does not serve the truth.

I’m finding the same with this one.  Maybe philosophers are just terrible at presenting their ideas – they don’t know what is relevant to the reader’s understanding of the topic they’re talking about.  They just seem to talk crap, in other words.

Mathematicians, computer p…[Read more]

Can you find anything wrong with this argument for belief in god being rational?

What I find wrong with this argument is that it’s difficult to understand because it uses jargon without proper explanation (e.g., “anti-rational”) – more difficult than it needs to be.  Maybe the audience is professional philosophers who would know these terms…[Read more]

The Catholic Church did not just forget about a few child sex abusers. They forgot about hundreds of them and therefore thousands of their victims. That Church is a disgrace to humanity.