thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
I suppose most of us have looked up at the night sky and wondered at some time – is there any other life out there? Another way of framing the question is to ask – is the earth unusual in supporting (supposedly) intelligent life? I have investigated this question in the past (see A rare […]
Are theists more moral than non-theists, or is it the other way round? Do theists and non-theists think very differently about ethics? It used to be easy to argue about these questions because everyone had a story to tell and no-one had any scientific evidence. But nowadays psychologists and others are undertaking scientific studies of […]
Benjamin Corey’s Formerly Fundie blog is one I read regularly. Benjamin mostly writes, from a slightly radical perspective, about christianity and church in America. But his latest blog (Why I Just Couldn’t Be An Atheist, Even If I Wanted To) discussed how he and an atheist friend sometimes discuss their respective beliefs.
I seem to be getting into quite a few discussions about universal fine-tuning lately. Only recently I discussed the argument for the existence of God based on the science of fine-tuning, and before that I discussed the science. Here, I want to give some quotes and references to cosmologists who have written on this topic.
A reader, Hugo, and I have been discussing the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God in the comments section of another post. His most recent comment contained a number of interesting points, so I thought there was enough for a new post. So here are Hugo’s comments, shown as blockquotes, with my responses. (I […]
Last post I discussed The science of universal fine-tuning, a topic that is much argued over these days. Of course we know one of the reasons behind the arguments is that the science of fine tuning forms a basis for an argument for the existence of God. So the stakes are high for both theists […]
Graphs of cosmological variables, with life-permitting regions shown in white. From The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life by Luke Barnes. Don’t worry – you don’t have to understand these graphs to understand this post! Recently I was a participant in a discussion on the science of fine-tuning, on Howie’s blog, Truth is Elusive. […]
This comment was made on a blog I was visiting recently: “None of us are born with any smattering of whether or not there is a god, or for that matter, even what a god is (or is not) – we have to be taught that” I was interested, for I knew of some scientific […]
The trial of Giordano Bruno by the Roman Inquisition, by Ettore Ferrari. Picture: Wikipedia. Recently the TV series Cosmos: a Spacetime Odyssey hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, was launched on TV screens around the world. I didn’t watch it (we don’t have pay TV) but the first episode generated some controversy, with critics arguing […]
Another interesting article, perhaps you could call it a rant, from Connor Wood on the Science on Religion blog, this time about those who want to turn science and religion into a battle.