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Showing posts from May, 2013

"Atheists reject Christianity not because it is unreasonable, but because they don’t want it, or theism more generally, to be true"

Here is one of four answers regularly offered by Christians (and others) for the failure of atheists to recognize the reasonableness of Christian belief (the other three, as well as a continuation of this one, will be blogged later). Edward Feser gets special mention: (i) Atheists reject Christianity not because it is unreasonable, but because they don’t want it, or theism more generally, to be true. Those attempting to explain atheist non-belief as a product of wishful thinking sometimes quote atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel, who in his book The Last Word , says: It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God, and naturally, hope there is no God. I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. [i] But is this the view of most atheists? Surely the Christian message is one of hope. It provides numerous attractive reassurances, especially about death and justice. In particular, it promises that w

Interview I gave after my talk at West Midlands Faiths Forum last September (conference on the riots)

Reposting for Heythrop students - stats on philosophy graduates (and religion too)

If you are wondering what kind of degree programme is likely to boost your general smarts, consider these figures. Go here . This is one of several graphs from the above article. Based on GRE test performance ( Graduate Record Examination ) of graduate programme applicants. Quantitative (math) skills on the vertical axis, verbal skills on the horizontal (other graphs include the third component - "analytical writing", at which philosophers also excel, dramatically outperforming all others). Philosophy graduates are pretty damn smart, the various figures suggest, compared to graduates with other degrees, including most - perhaps even all - sciences (though were they smarter to begin with, or did their degree programme make them smarter, compared to other degrees?). Check the article. Here 's the original table of GRE scores of US students completing a variety of degrees. Notice religion also does very well. This data suggests (but falls a long way short

Correction to Believing Bullshit, chpt 2.

Here's an endnote I am adding to a chapter I am contributing to the upcoming Handbook on Humanism (edited by AC Grayling and Andrew Copson [Wiley Blackwell publisher]). I now realize I got something wrong in chapter 2 of my book Believing Bullshit , so might as well set the record straight publicly. Here's the endnote of the chapter I am now writing for the new book [n.b. YEC = Young Earth Creationism]: Elsewhere I have said that because Ken Ham’s theory makes no predictions – takes no risks – regarding the fossil record, so it cannot be confirmed by the fossil record. See “But It Fits!” in my Believing Bullshit (Amherst NY: Prometheus Press, 2011). I now realize I did not get this quite right. Were we to start excavating fossils that were clearly stamped “Made by God in 4,004 BC”, etc., that might indeed confirm – even strongly confirm – YEC, despite the fact that YEC does not predict such a discovery. True, such a discovery may not be probable given YEC, bu

Heythrop College, University of London - my open day welcome talk

--> I have been teaching philosophy at Heythrop College for seventeen years. This was my first full-time teaching appointment after leaving Oxford. Unlike many academics keen to climb the career ladder - and who consequently tend to migrate from one institution to another at the beginning of their careers - I have stayed put. I have stayed here at Heythrop for my entire career. Why? 

Book coming out end of the year (to which I contribute)

The Oxford Handbook of Atheism [FINAL CONTENTS LIST] Editors: Stephen Bullivant (St Mary’s University College) and Michael Ruse (Florida State University) Introduction: The Study of Atheism – Stephen Bullivant (St Mary’s) and Michael Ruse (Florida State) Part 1: Definitions and Debates                                      1. Defining ‘Atheism’ – Stephen Bullivant (St Mary’s) 2. The Case against Atheism – T. J. Mawson (Oxford) 3. Critiques of Theistic Arguments – A. C. Grayling (Birkbeck) 4. Arguments for Atheism – Graham Oppy (Monash) 5. Problems of Evil – Michael L. Peterson (Asbury) 6. Atheism and Morality – Erik J. Wielenberg (DePauw) 7. Atheism and the Meaningfulness of Life – Kimberly A. Blessing (Buffalo State) 8. Aquinas and Atheism – Brian Davies (Fordham) Part 2: History of (Western) Atheism 9. The Pre-Socratics to the Hellenistic Age – David Sedley (Cambridge) 10. The Roman Empire to the End of the First Millennium – Mark Ed

My Blackham Lecture next Friday: How Do We Raise Moral Children?

Blackham Lecture 2013: How do we raise moral children? Presented by Stephen Law What is our best protection against moral catastrophes such as the Holocaust and killing fields of Cambodia? Are such events a product of the collapse of traditional religious authority and the rise of secularism and atheism? Must we either return to traditional religious values and authority, or slide into moral relativism and nihilism? How do we raise moral citizens? Chaired by Adrian Bailey from Birmingham Humanists , and introduced by Jane Wynne Willson. Date: 17 May, 2013 Time: 7:00 pm for 7.30 pm start – 9.30 pm About the speaker: Stephen Law worked as a postman before first entering university as a mature student at the age of 24. He has a B.Phil and D.Phil in philosophy from the University of Oxford and was a stipendiary Junior Research Fellow in philosophy at Queen’s College, Oxford, for three years.  He is a senior lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop College, Uni

The Meaning of Life: the Alpha Course vs. Philosophy

Extract from my OUP book Humanism: A Very Short Introduction, which references the Alpha Course (it's from chpt 7)   Religion vs. shallow, selfish individualism Let’s now turn to religious practice. Setting aside the issue of whether God exists, perhaps it might still be argued that religious reflection or observance is required if our lives are not to be shallow and meaningless. Here is one such argument. It is sometimes claimed, with some justification, that religion encourages people to take a step back and reflect on the bigger questions. Even many non-religious people suppose that a life lived out in the absence of any such reflection is likely to be rather shallow. Contemporary Western society is obsessed with things that are, in truth, comparatively worthless: money, celebrity, material possessions, etc. Our day-to-day lives are out often lived out within a narrow envelope of essentially selfish concerns, with little or no time given to contemplating bigger que

Baudrillard - J'accuse!

Here is a quote from Baudrillard that Prof Paul Taylor chose for the Radio 3 programme we recorded to be broadcast tonite at 10pm (I am talking about pseudo-profundity and bullshit and pointing a finger at some post-modern thinkers - listen here for a week [I am on from about 14mins30]): For ethnology to live, its object must die. But the latter revenges itself by dying for having been "discovered", and defies by its death the science that wants to take hold of it. Doesn't every science live on this paradoxical slope to which it is doomed by the evanescence of its object in the very process of its apprehension, and by the pitiless reversal this dead object exerts on it? Like Orpheus it always turns around too soon, and its object, like Eurydice, falls back into Hades ... the logical evolution of a science is to distance itself ever further from its object until it dispenses with it entirely: its autonomy evermore fantastical in reaching its pure form. Pa

Pseudo-profundity and Intellectuals - I'm on BBC Radio 3 tonite

I will be on BBC Radio 3 The Verb Tonight discussing "intellectuals" and pseudo-profundity. I had a right old punch up with Prof Paul Taylor (Communications Studies, University of Leeds). But we made up afterwards over cake. You can here it live tonite 10pm and on the website for a week after that: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnsf Here is a quote from Baudrillard that Paul chose for the programme: For ethnology to live, its object must die. But the latter revenges itself by dying for having been "discovered", and defies by its death the science that wants to take hold of it. Doesn't every science live on this paradoxical slope to which it is doomed by the evanescence of its object in the very process of its apprehension, and by the pitiless reversal this dead object exerts on it? Like Orpheus it always turns around too soon, and its object, like Eurydice, falls back into Hades ... the logical evolution of a science is to distance itself ever furthe

Draft of chpt on Humanism, science reason, skepticism, for comments please

Draft of a chpt for a popular book on Humanism. This is most recent, longer version. Some notes etc. missing. Still pretty rough. Humanism: Science, Reason and Skepticism [1] What are science and reason? Humanists expound the virtues of science and reason. But what are science and reason? And we should we think it wise to rely on them? By science, I shall mean that approach to finding out about reality based on the scientific method. This is a method that was fully developed only a few hundred years ago. Science, as I’ll use the term here, is a comparatively recent invention, its development owing a great deal to 16th and 17th Century thinkers such as the philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) . So what is the scientific method? Here’s a very rough sketch. [2] Scientists collect data through observation and experiment. They formulate hypotheses and broader theories about the nature of reality to account for what they observe. Crucially, they also t