philosophy
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Agnostic Atheism
Having personally gone through theism and agnosticism, I fully understand why people would want to call themselves agnostic atheists.
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Q: What is the meaning of death?
A: Organisms are giant machines, and they require a lot of energy. All day, every day, most organisms spend their time concerned with the consumption and excretion of biological material. And since they constantly reproduce, they are introducing more of these consumers into the environment. Birth brings about mutations, which brings about change and leads…
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Q: Why has evolution programmed us to believe we have immortal souls?
Q: Why has evolution programmed us to believe we have immortal souls? A: Because (in a sense) we do have immortal souls: our DNA. Every strand of DNA in every living cell of every organism is a genetic history lesson. We share our respiratory, circulatory, digestive, system as trillions of other animals, and we are…
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Q: Is the human mind capable of grasping the universe?
Q: Is the human mind capable of grasping the universe? A: I don’t think the human mind is capable of fully understanding it, but only because we were not evolved for such advanced thinking. It doesn’t make a difference in our lives whether or not we can grasp these concepts, so the tendency towards advanced…
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Q: If you could ask God any question, what would it be? and what would be the question that God asks in response?
Q: If you could ask God any question, what would it be? and what would be the question that God asks in response? A: Eric: Why are you so explicit in the Bible but so silent in nature? God: How would I get people to read my book if they knew the ending?
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Q: Atheists: Could you argue IN FAVOR of Theism?
Q: Atheists: Could you argue IN FAVOR of Theism? This is more a poll about debate skills than principles. I know from my own debate experience that I rely on the rules of logic to form a sound argument. I also think that I can argue from either side of most debates effectively…with the exception…
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Q: Spiritually speaking about midichlorian evolution…?
Q: Spiritually speaking about midichlorian evolution…? If midichlorians are symbiotic flora that communicate with the Force, and is present in Jedi who have emerged from genetically unrelated races that evolved from different planets across the galaxy far far away, where did midichlorians come from? How can the same genetic material evolve on multiple planets simultaneously?…
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Clive Thompson on Why Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing
Recently I read a novella that posed a really deep question: What would happen if physical property could be duplicated like an MP3 file? What if a poor society could prosper simply by making pirated copies of cars, clothes, or drugs that cure fatal illnesses? The answer Cory Doctorow offers in his novella After the…
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Leap of Logic
Why is it a logic leap to say that existence implies a creator, but statistical inevitability is not? During a discussion I was having with one of my very good friends, a question came up that I had to stop and think about. It’s a delicate matter, with an important subtlety that has to be…
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You Are Not Agnostic
This is an old paper I wrote for a religion class, and I’m only leaving it here for posterity. I may replace it with a more concise version (because this one is too academic) once I feel the motivation. This version does not fully represent what I believe now. Agnosticism is the belief that it…
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There’s a Difference between Thinking and Doing
A family member recently sent out a family email and it got our discussion juices flowing again. My problem with the email was that it portrayed liberally-minded people as foolish and weak. If you really believe that, then this email is definitely for you. Someone said that (most, if not all) liberals ACTUALLY believe that…
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There Is No Spoon
There is a scene in the movie “The Matrix” where the main character, Neo, is visiting a so-called oracle. As he waits to see her, he looks at the other “potentials” that stay with her. These potentials, all children, are able to manipulate objects using what appears to be telekinesis. At one point, Neo leans…
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Lawless, Godless Heathens!
I had a couple family members make (what I believe) are huge mistakes by assuming that without religion one cannot have law. They acted like the only place people learn rules is from religious entities. I wonder if they realized that most of the rules they’re talking about were taught to them by society, and…
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Can’t Prove or Disprove It
Saying that you can’t prove or disprove the existence of God has been the cop-out for the God debate for as long as I’ve been aware of it. Atheists, Christians, and primarily agnostics use this idea when it all comes down to agreeing to disagree. For the longest time, I was accepting of the idea…
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You’ll Never Convince Them
During all of these religious and political discussions, I keep hearing from people who try to tell me to lay off because it seems like I’m trying to talk someone into something. I keep hearing people say, “You’re never going to convince them.” I wish people would stop telling me that for one simple reason:…
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WHAT IF there was no God?
I have been raised to believe in God, and I have always felt a presence, though my definition of the source of that feeling has changed over time. But, throughout that time, I truly believed in a higher power of some kind, continually watching over me. I simply couldn’t think of the world without a…
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Love as a Drug
Today I was thinking about how drugs affect the mind, and I stumbled upon an analogy. What do drugs do? In other words, how do they work on us? Well, they are simply chemicals that get in our bodies and our brains that disrupt or otherwise alter the usual flow of neural activity. We like…
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Dog Spiel
In our schools and public places The meme of submission minus reason perpetuates, Replicates like bacteria in our sweet minds. We live, some learn, and work ourselves to death, But that was why we were created, wasn’t it? So much needless and mindless discussion, Of things that do and can change nothing. Philosophists invent discussions,…
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Nature vs. Nurture
To make it perfectly clear, this is an analogy, as I do not have enough evidence to prove otherwise. We are born, and according to our DNA, in there is how we would respond to every question that could ever be asked or every event that could come before us. Whether or not it is…
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Teaching Science from a Christian Perspective
My girlfriend’s younger brother is doing homeschool this semester, and we just happened to stop by and see his textbooks. At first, I thought nothing of it, but then I actually read the thing. This book, supposedly a learning tool, does its best to defame science as a working tool to understanding our universe. I…
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Humanity’s Role in Evolution
Some people fear the idea of some form of artificial intelligence taking over the world and killing everyone. While this is probably the most extreme outcome, it is generally our worst fears that motivate us most. If we were to create a true kind of artificial intelligence that was actually able to think for itself…
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My Stance on Cloning
Whether you like it or not, human cloning is on it’s way. In fact, it is so much on it’s way that it is quite possible that at the time of this writing, a human being may now be growing up as a direct result of being cloned. These ethical implications and moral questions are…
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My Stance on Jesus Christ
Let one of my favorite fictional characters take over for a moment and I will get right back to you… “I’m a Christian in the sense that I find Jesus Christ to be an admirable historical figure. I think the Sermon on the Mount is one of the greatest ethical statements and one of the…