Mere Machines

New Atheists In the days of the frothing-at-the-mouth “new atheists” starting in around 2008, many of the more vulnerable fence-sitters on the God question were swallowed up and inoculated against rational thought on the subject. “Nones” What followed was an even larger rise in the number of people who apparently think one can remain neutral […]

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It’s the Moon, Stupid

The natural world has a goal-directedness to it.  There is an element of purpose.  This is what is meant by the word “teleological,” a word used by philosophers for centuries to describe the apparent purposefulness of material things. Getting to a full understanding of teleology takes some ramping up in the form of understanding Aristotle’s final causes, […]

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Simple Determinism

A central tenet of theist and especially Christian beliefs is that people have agency; that is, moral choice and therefore moral responsibility, based on a moral Authority outside themselves.  The modern view of reality, however, is that there is nothing beyond matter in motion governed by laws of physics, and therefore no God, and therefore no […]

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