Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Rethinking what it means to be “legally human”

Perhaps we will morph into a civilization where a turtle with some human cells is legally human and therefore has security of the person but vast swathes of humanity are not. If you vote for people who think that’s cool, at least you will get something you voted for. Happy New Year. Read More ›

Ethan Siegel asks at Forbes, Did God create the universe?

Siegel makes an interesting comparison with, say, Sabine Hossenfelder. He does great graphics but to say that he is not a deep thinker is to shower him with imprudent praise. By contrast, we go on listening to Hossenfelder with great interest, whether the graphics are good or not. Read More ›

Jonathan Bartlett on why we can’t upload our brains to computers

The idea that we can upload our brains to computers to avoid death shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the differences between types of thinking. Read More ›

Michael Egnor sympathizes with people who think the universe is conscious

Michaael Egnor: There is no doubt that consciousness is a fundamental property of animal and human existence. As philosopher Philip Goff notes, a philosophy that cannot plausibly account for it cannot be correct. Read More ›

Historian: Christianity has been the world’s greatest engine for moral reform

Thomas Kidd: To cite just one, sociologist Robert Woodberry showed in a landmark 2012 article that Christian missionaries were responsible for much of the global spread of cultural values such as “religious liberty, mass education, mass printing, newspapers, voluntary organizations, and colonial reforms” from Latin America to East Asia. Read More ›

Dawkins raises an issue without intending to: Can one “outgrow” God without “outgrowing” morality?

Rebecca McLaughlin: To Dawkins’s credit, he comes dangerously close to acknowledging that religious belief is correlated with better moral outcomes—though he would like to think humans are better than that (117). He finds it rather patronizing to say, “Of course you and I are too intelligent to believe in God, but we think it would be a good idea if other people did!” (122). Read More ›

David Bentley Hart offers an honest assessment of Richard Dawkins’s new book

The book is Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide. Hart thinks Dawkins has finally found his authorial voice but you had better read the rest. Read More ›