Sean Carroll: Simon Conway Morris is a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist who’s new book is From Extraterrestrials to Animal Minds: Six Myths of Evolution. He is known as a defender of evolutionary convergence and adaptationism — even when there is a mass extinction, he argues, the resulting shake-up simply accelerates the developments evolution would have made anyway.
theism
Jerry Coyne weighs in against Steve Meyer in Newsweek
Coyne couldn’t prevent it but he can at least trash it. We like this state of affairs.
Wm Lane Craig on Systematic Philosophical Theology
He has a book that seems to be forthcoming. Here is a Talbot introductory lecture: He has a Q&A: A key clip: Notice, a paper, here. Excerpting Dr Clinton: Ostensibly, the reason for a ‘system’ of theology is that someone, or some group, has come to understand the teachings of the Bible and of their Read More…
Debate: Theism vs. Naturalism: Which is a Better Account of Reality?
The May 16 debate featured apologist Jonathan McLatchie vs “Cosmic Skeptic” Alex O’Connor, an influential New Atheist.
A teenager does a good job of explaining the existence of God.
If it weren’t for God, you would not know anything at all. Hat tip: Philip Cunningham
James Tour vs. Denis Lamoureux on whether evolution is compatible with Christianity
James Tour is a chemist. Denis Lamoureux is an associate professor of science and religion at St. Joseph’s College in the University of Alberta
At Mind Matters News: Einstein believed in Spinoza’s God. Who is that God?
In a discussion with Solms, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor argues that it makes more sense to see God as a Person than as a personification of nature.
The American Christians did not “wage war on” Darwin either — not at first
Incidentally, he notes a coalescence among some Christian thinkers today between Darwin and the much-ridiculed William Paley (19th century design proponent). Yes? That whirring sound you hear is Darwin spinning in his grave, reaching unthinkable speeds…
Why did the evangelical Christian world go nuts for Christian Darwinism a decade ago?
Contra Trendy Christians: It makes sense that all humans would descend from a single couple. If you had to account for something like, say, human consciousness, isn’t it easier to address that if we all belong to the same family of origin? Would you prefer to explain the development of human consciousness assuming that we come from multiple different ones? Darn good thing if someone can prove its true genetically.
At Mind Matters News: Multiverse cosmology is not a good argument against God
God could have created countless universes on various principles for a variety of reasons. The key argument against the multiverse is that there is no evidence for it; it takes us outside the realm of observable science — a choice with consequences.
Commentator Eric Metaxas asks, Is atheism dead?
Come to think of it, we don’t hear much these days from the once ultra-fashionable New Atheist movement. Maybe it’s just hard to fight Something with Nothing.
At Evolution News: C. S. Lewis and the argument for theism from reason
Jay Richards: Natural selection could conceivably select for survival-enhancing behavior. But it has no tool for selecting only the behaviors caused by true beliefs, and weeding out all the others. So if our reasoning faculties came about as most naturalists assume they have, then we have little reason to assume they are reliable in the sense of giving us true beliefs. And that applies to our belief that naturalism is true.
Egnor vs. Dillahunty: 11. Is evil in the world simply the absence of good?
Egnor: “The Thomistic understanding of evil is that it’s an absence of good. It’s not a thing that exist independently in itself. It’s a deficit of goodness. God’s creation necessarily fall short of goodness because if he created something perfectly good, He would just be creating himself. “
Is there such a thing as morality or ethics?
Michael Egnor insists that a moral law exists independently of varying opinions. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, that has always been the traditional view worldwide.
Michael Egnor: Theists vs. atheists: Which group has the burden of proof?
Egnor: Both atheists and theists make positive statements about the nature of the universe. If atheists shun the ensuing burden of proof, it should count against them.