The Carrier-Marshall Debate: My Sixth Reply

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For other entries, see index. We’ve just concluded our...

The Argument from Specified Complexity against Supernaturalism

Creationists may have bitten their own head off with their idea of specified complexity. Because there is a case to be made that if specified complexity can exist, the supernatural cannot. The creationist William Dembski famously contrived the concept of...

Eight Philosophical Questions We’ll Never Solve?

Years back George Dvorsky wrote a popular article at io9 titled “8 Great Philosophical Questions We’ll Never Solve.” It’s interesting because all eight are triggers for the same cognitive biases sustaining irrational theistic belief. Is it true...

How to Be Skeptical of a Technological Singularity

Chris Hallquist has hosted a guest post on his blog by Luke Muehlhauser, whom some of you might remember as the brilliant and balanced author of Common Sense Atheism and Worldview Naturalism, and who is now executive director of MIRI. As Hallquist describes the post,...

Ten Years to the Robot Apocalypse

Counting down. Soon we shall all be doomed. Okay, I wrote this on the plane to Alabama about a month ago. It’s been languishing in my queue until now. So step back in time. I’m presently five miles above the earth hurtling through space in a giant metal...

20 Questions

Are there “20 Questions Atheists Struggle to Answer” ? I was asked how I respond to Peter Saunders’ claim that there are, and how I would respond to those questions. According to God’s Advocate, Saunders thinks “there have not been any...

The God Impossible

Is the existence of God logically impossible? I used to be suspicious of arguments that attempted to prove that, because they were usually so lame, and easily rebutted (although some stick, depending on which “God” you are talking about: see my discussion...