Welcome to the Philosophy Forums! If you are not a member, please join the forums now. It's completely free! If you are a member, please log in.

Search found 51 matches

Return to advanced search

  • Author
  • Message

Re: Dawkins' Ultimate 747 Gambit

December 27th, 2011, 10:21 pm

"the Ultimate 747 Gambit is not really meant to disprove (to the point of severe improbability) the existence of a god in itself" Well that does seem to go against the grain of Dawkins' explicit claims about it, but okay. Clearly valid'? Have you tried constructing a logically valid argume...
Fidel

Re: The Jerry Coyne Challenge

November 14th, 2011, 11:37 am

Wittgenstoned, Thank you for taking the time to comment. The question is posed by atheist scientist Jerry Coyne to Theologian & Philosopher Keith Ward who has argues that science can''t explain everything. Ward wants to say there are facts that religion and other things provide but science can't...
Fidel

The Jerry Coyne Challenge

November 13th, 2011, 7:36 pm

"give me just one reasonably well established fact about the world that comes from “general philosophical views, moral views, personal experience and judgment” without any verifiable empirical input.

can anybody meet this?
Fidel

Re: Eating babies

November 13th, 2011, 5:39 pm

(quote not shown) I didn't conclude that or assert that Xris.I'm just asking what. if anything, makes the baby more valuable. (quote not shown) Okay, they sound like fairly plausible intutions. (quote not shown) Again, plausible (quote not shown) . Who or what complels us? Have we no choice? We're n...
Fidel

Re: Eating babies

November 12th, 2011, 7:25 pm

Xris, (quote not shown) The question for debate is what, if any, is the morally significant difference between killing and eating a baby (or an Alzheimer's patient) and killing an eating a pig, this beng a creature with similar cognitive capacities, capable of the same amounts of suffering etc etc )...
Fidel

Re: Eating babies

November 11th, 2011, 8:41 pm

Xris, "We have been designed to eat meat" 'Designed'? If you are religious I see no gain in quarreling with your position. But if you're not - you're either misusing language and/or confused about evolution. "stating eating our own off spring is just as bad as say eating an ant is bey...
Fidel

Re: Eating babies

November 10th, 2011, 10:10 pm

Hi Gareth, (quote not shown) Lets assume it is wrong to kill (and eat) Wowbagger (though he would say you do him in no harm if you cause him no pain). Why is it immoral to kill and eat a baby or another human with no greater intelligence, sentience or ability to feel pain or make moral judgements th...

Re: Dawkins' Ultimate 747 Gambit

November 10th, 2011, 6:47 pm

Hi Belinda, It has honestly never occurred to me that what the modern theist believes in and worships is a contingent physical being. Perhaps I associate 'theism' too much with 'the god of the philosophers'? Dawkins' Boeing 747 seems a fine response to the patently silly argument to design, and a gr...
Fidel

Re: Defining Evil

November 2nd, 2011, 8:54 am

Hi Lost 1, "you know people can not really do what they truly believe to be wrong" I gather Socrates tried running that up the flagpole but do you really think it flies? It seems we all do what we know is wrong all the time, hence our guilt, shame, regret and our internal fight against our...

Dawkins' Ultimate 747 Gambit

November 2nd, 2011, 8:39 am

In The God Delusion, Dawkins makes the 'Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit'. This depends on the claim that God must be complex and that such complexity is deeply improbable, and its from that he gets to the claim that God 'almost certainly does not exist'. His claim isn’t just that the God Hypothesis is a ...

Re: Why not to ask "Who Designed The Designer?"

November 1st, 2011, 10:22 pm

(quote not shown) Hi Rajaroux, I am inclined to say there is no reason to believe God exists, I'm inclined to think there is no reason to entertain the possibility. At least some conceptions of "God" seem plainly incoherent and on that basis I don't think its stupid to say nothing can or w...
Fidel

Re: Eating babies

November 1st, 2011, 9:54 pm

Hi Gareth, I'm sure Wowbagger can answer for hmself. But what seems plausible is that all that is important, at least as far as non-humans or non-persons is concernd, is the ability to feel pain or suffer. (Wowbagger holds humans are no excpetion but we don't need to adgree to that). Stones and bact...

Re: Why not to ask "Who Designed The Designer?"

November 1st, 2011, 6:08 pm

Rayback, *Possibly* there is a way to ask 'who designed the designer?' in the context of a sensible argument, *possibly* Dawkins does that.. but at least very often it is indeed stupid and not even a clever tactic. Speaking as an atheist, I see Christopher Hitchens has argued like this, and I notice...
Fidel

Re: Defining Evil

November 1st, 2011, 5:51 pm

Lost1, (quote not shown) A fair point. Words can change meaning - but its not as if we are only talking about etymology, 'evil' does have a religious connection in today's world. (quote not shown) Sadisic psychopaths? Are the latter 'evil', are they even 'immoral' - are they not simply amoral but ha...

Re: Why not to ask "Who Designed The Designer?"

October 30th, 2011, 1:01 pm

hi Wooden Shoe & Xris, Thanks for your thoughts. (quote not shown) Yup Wooden Shoe, thats pretty clear. He won't debate Creationists - I think he comapres it to a cartographer debatign a flat-earther. But he does seem to get distinctly furious about it. I'm inclined to think, though I don't like...
Next

Return to advanced search

Can't find what you are looking for? Try our custom Google search of this website.