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It’s Worse than That: Tough Decisions and the Tipping Point for Making them
I think it was a malamute, and it was in our shelter. Did I mention that I used to work in a conventional Humane Association? For those that haven’t already read between the lines, this means I worked...
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Uncharitable Thoughts About the Principle of Charity
This may seem ironic, but among the topics generally falling under the purview of logic and/or critical thinking is a little gem called the “principle of charity.” Simply put, this entails an...
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Jesus is the Homunculus of Human Suffering
Crucified Christ byMatthias Grünewald Sometimes texts and utterances become what they purport to describe. Case in point? This little meditation on the spiritual meaning of suffering, An Attempt to...
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When Values Trump Themselves: A Rant About Self-Defeating Ethics
Sometimes idealization strengthens a value; sometimes it destroys it. The trick is to know the difference. It gets more difficult to tell the difference when a value becomes central to one’s own life,...
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Preaching to the Non-Choir and Slouching Towards an Apologetic Tradition
http://redwing.hutman.net What is the difference between a Christian philosopher and a Christian apologist? Quite simply, marketing. When I think of a Christian philosopher, I think of someone...
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Metaphors that Miss and Tropes that Trip: Mental Musings and, Hey Look a Cow!
Maybe the mind is like a calm river in the morning, full of napalm and watermelon seeds. The mind is a strange place. Unless it’s not a place at all; maybe it’s a cabbage. I don’t mean that it has...
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A Hyponym Walks into a Bar…
I could believe in a God of Korean BBQ, yes I could! I Grumble: I wish I had a nickel for every time a Christian told me that my take on the existence of God isn’t really atheism; it’s agnosticism. No,...
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Silencing the Base Villains and Sending us Back to the Old Narratives: Yep...
“Who should I swear by? thou believest no god: That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?” – Titus Andronicus It isn’t often that the villains of a narrative grow up to lead lives of their own. Such...
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An Uncommon Refutation
Philosophy buffs will already know about Sidney Morgenbesser, (September 22, 1921 – August 1, 2004). A Professor at Columbia University, Morgenbesser’s sharp wit has produced more than a few great...
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God is Not an Apologist! (Except Maybe on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 to...
Yes, the Holy Bible comes in an Arctic Edition Somewhere in the movie, God is Not Dead, the main character proclaims that the burden both theists and atheists must face is the question of how the...
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Ask Not What the Alibi Buddy Says About You!
possible sighting? We’ve all heard about the alibi buddy. He’s that gay guy whose best friends with the man telling you he’s against gay rights. He’s also the black guy who hangs out with the fellow...
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Decalogic Schemalogic!
Maybe you’ve seen it yourself. One of the many pieces of spirit-kitch floating about the net these days is a little gem called The Native American Ten Commandments. It might as easily be labelled an...
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Argumentation and Its Narrative Payoff
It’s been a long time since I read Lakoff and Johnson’s book Metaphors We Live By, but I was recently thinking the internet has surely added a lot of good material for some of its central themes. The...
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The Proof of Burdens
Does God exist? In discussions between atheists and believers that question always seems to be on hold, because we seldom get past the other question, the one about who has the burden of proof in that...
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Mother Earth, the Invisible Hand, and a Few Eider Ducks
I’ve been thinking lately about the notion of Mother Earth (or Primal Gaia). She figures rather prominently in a lot of the literature I read back in grad school, and I frequently have occasion to...
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Good Without an Apology
Saw this in Cedar City this summer (I think Moni took the picture.) Atheists can’t provide a sound basis for their morality. …it’s the kinder gentler version of “atheists can’t be moral,” which is a...
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A World Without Children, or at Least a Policy Without Them!
Can you imagine a human being, fully formed without also imagining him or her embedded in a network of social relationships? Can you (or anyone) be a person without being among others? Suffice to say...
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Just How Much Fallacy is Your To Quoque?
Judging you!!! We all learned that two wrongs don’t make a right when we were kids, didn’t we? And we learned that ‘you too’ arguments are a fallacy back in Freshman logic class, right? Right? Okay,...
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Biases All the Way Down, Yes, but Some Biases are More Troublesome Than Others
Bending to the Left? When I listen to people complaining about indoctrination in the schools or dismissing perfectly sound journalism by chanting the mantra “fake news,” I’m always struck by the...
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The Declastution, Reconsidered
Have you ever had anyone cite the following words from the “Constitution?” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain...
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