Watching atheists debate moral issues is fascinating.  Like a man wading a river with water up to his nose and saying “water, what water?” they are up to their noses in irony and yet appear to be completely oblivious to it. Two atheists debating moral issues are like two card players arguing over whether a particular play is legal when one of them is judging the play by the rules of bridge and the other is judging the play by the rules of poker. The rules of bridge and the rules of poker, like the rules of all card games, are arbitrary.  Arbitrary rules work fine so long as all the players agree to abide by them.  But what happens Read More ›

Many felt disgust with former vice presidential candidate John Edwards for cheating on his terminally ill wife Elizabeth Edwards. In the process of his affair, Edwards fathered a child with his mistress, Rielle Hunter. Rielle is now one of the most hated women in America. But according to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, men having mistresses is not what is immoral, but the rather the notion of monogamy (rooted in our evolved desire for faithfulness) is what is immoral. From Banishing the Green Eyed Monster by Richard Dawkins I want to raise another question that interests me. Why are we so obsessed with monogamous fidelity in the first place? …. The underlying presumption — that a human being has some kind Read More ›

My wife teaches sixth grade reading in a public middle school and today the students return from summer vacation.  So it seemed like an auspicious time to write about how she regularly employees the techniques of design detection in her job. During the course of any given school year she assigns several writing projects.  She is always pleased to receive papers showing excellent writing skills and large vocabularies – up to a limit.  We have all heard that if something seems too good to be true it probably isn’t true.  Sadly, on several occasions each year my wife will receive writing projects that force her to conclude one of two things:  (1) this sixth grader writes like an adult with a Read More ›