Ethics

Usually this is not a topic I deal with, but an UD commenter gently asked such interesting question in another thread. Theism states a transcendent Principle, which is One and Infinite. This Unity is the First cause of the universal existence, of all beings and all things (for this reason He is also the Great Designer of the universe). This Supreme Principle is the Self “who stays within the heart of any being; who is the principle, the mean and the end of all beings”. Besides, this Self is also absolute Truth and supreme Knowledge. Given this fundamental Unity, this Center, where “all beings are fused but not confused” – as M. Eckart said -, it is straightforward to derive Read More ›

While it is Christmas and we all hope to turn our attention to more pleasant matters, unfortunately there are some concerns that will not wait. So, pardon a few moments to address such. But first , let me wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all. Now, in the past few days, Mr Arrington and I posted here and here at UD on the Newtown, CT school mass murder incident.  Over the past week, however, the incident has now been caught up in a global media firestorm. My attention has been drawn to an insightful remark by Mr Larry Correia, so I beg permission to take liberty to excerpt a personal blog post, on a sense of duty Read More ›

Yesterday was a hard day, even for those like me who were quite late to the news. We woke up here to the news on BBC — a Caribbean tradition — that someone in China had attacked a classroom with a knife of some kind and had slashed twenty-two children. This, in a country where there is a very harsh one child per family law, backed up by forced abortions etc. And, apparently, it is not the first such recent attack in that country. (Cf article in the Hartford Courant — and yes, that is tragically close to home.) Then, across the course of the day, news emerged of a similar attack in an elementary school in Newtown Connecticut, USA. Read More ›

A piece of mine has been just published in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC’s) excellent Religion and Ethics website. It provides a larger context for my own theologically positive approach to ID, which I realize is not everyone’s cup of tea. However, like Gregory Sandstrom, I welcome johnnyb’s intervention, which raises the issue of which companies an ID supporter would invest in (or not). I personally find the choices a bit on the Rorschach side of plausibility — i.e. it tells us more about the beliefs of the proposer. So Eric Holloway is happy to regard ‘gamers’ as ‘human’ in a way that has not been contaminated by the AI ideology of Kurzweil et al., so he doesn’t see their Read More ›

In our final video for the Engineering and Metaphysics conference, we have Dr. Walter Bradley, famous in ID circles for his book, The Mystery of Life’s Origin. Here Dr. Bradley shares with us his work on helping relieve poverty in third-world countries through engineering. He also tells us about practices that people attempt to use to relieve poverty which are unhelpful. This is a great summary of the practices that work and the practices that don’t work. If you have trouble with this, you can see it at the following URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X92BDBku6g4 I hope you enjoyed the Engineering and Metaphysics conference! It was great to get to know everyone, and to get to spend time talking about these things with Read More ›

Other psychiatrists now find Norway massacre gunman Anders Behring Breivik ‘not insane’ – prison now possible

“The experts’ main conclusion is that the accused, Anders Behring Breivik, is not considered to have been psychotic at the time of the actions on July 22, 2011,” the Oslo district court said in a statement which reopens the debate on whether the self-confessed killer can be sent to prison.

“That means that he is considered criminally responsible at the time of the crime.”

The new evaluation counters the findings of an initial probe that found Breivik was suffering from “paranoid schizophrenia,” which meant he would most likely be sentenced to psychiatric care instead of prison.

Recall our first highly controversial post questioning:
Was Norway shooter a Social Darwinian terrorist? Read More ›

Since the question of the history of ideas roots of a certain Herr Schicklegruber’s thoughts seems to repeatedly come up, it is worth the while to here post the Lecture “From Darwin to Hitler,” by Prof Richard Weikart so that we all may see what he has to say: [youtube w_5EwYpLD6A] For record, so no comments. Comments may continue in the current “Who said this?” thread, here. My own view is simple: no responsible discussion of this topic or related concerns can ignore the evidence brought forward by prof Weikart here. END _______________ U/D Jan 5: CSU not UC, Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader.

Several days ago, UD news raised the above case, and the response of a class of students, as a test case on the objectivity of morality. Further details — and a shocking picture of a beautiful but mutilated girl that we all need to examine, painful or not — are here.  In deference to sensibilities, I will ensure that the shocking graphic is below the fold.) Read More ›

In recent days, UD contributor Dr V J Torley has rightly taken atheism advocate, professor Richard Dawkins to task for cynical manipulation of our moral sensibilities in his public accusations against Christian philosopher-theologian, Dr William Lane Craig. And that, patently to avoid having to account through a public debate for his many acid fulminations against theism and the Christian faith in particular over the years.

(ADDED, Nov 2/3, NB: it may help to cf. a thought-provoking video here. [NB: This video documents that professor Dawkins is on record that he evidently cannot find a basis for moral objection to infanticide, and that he evidently cannot find a moral basis for objecting to Hitler’s genocide. His projection of moral outrage against Craig etc is therefore credibly manipulative rather than genuine. This is consistent with the long since documented inherent amorality of materialism that is further discussed below.] In case it is needed, this clip documents Dr Craig’s actual view on moral issues, obviously including on genocide. Craig directly responds here, from about 8:15 on, explicitly that the genocide accusation “is a misrepresentation of my position” [8:50], c.9:20 on he clarifies: “dispossess [a debauched culture]” as opposed to “genocide,”  though I still think he has not adequately appreciated the evident non-literal war rhetoric context nor does he address the eternal blood feud issue that nearly 1,000 years later Israel faced while in captivity under Persia. Cf comment here below for more. )

Professor Dawkins now seems to have beaten a hasty retreat behind the poisonously polarised cloud stirred up by his knowingly false accusation of support for genocide.

(And if you think that “knowingly false” is inaccurate, you can rest assured that no sane,  sensible, informed person in our civilisation can seriously entertain the notion that Bible-believing Christians and Christian leaders in particular, support genocide. The accusation plainly was rhetorical  “red meat” tossed out to stir up a distractive, atmosphere-poisoning controversy.)

But that leads to some serious issues. Read More ›