Reading Time: 7 minutes In the recent UK general election and in previous and present US political discourse, there has been a propensity to defend billionaires by those who aren’t billionaires. In fact, those who defend them are far, far closer to poverty and bankruptcy than to being a billionaire. By a considerable margin. The defence of billionaires seems […]
maths
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Miracles, Prayer, Coincidences and Statistical Probability
Reading Time: 13 minutes I went to the pub last night with a couple of mates, one of whom is the founding member of the Tippling Philosophers. Because we are very cool people, we spent a large amount of time talking philosophy and theology. Strap yourselves in, this ain’t short. My other friend talked about a couple of unexplained […]
Posted inPolitics
Skewed Data from Massive Inequality in the US
Reading Time: < 1 minute Here is something well worth knowing. What many people do with America is take averages, say of income, earnings etc. However, this skews data. Because the US has the highest inequality, and the rich are super fricking rich, those super super rich raise the average considerably to make the average look okay, but, in reality, […]
Posted inScience
Countries with a Strong Religious Culture Are Worse at Maths and Science
Reading Time: 2 minutes This comes from the Daily Mail, of all places. Oh, the cognitive dissonance that must have been going on there! The actual headline reads: “Countries with a strong religious culture are WORSE at maths and science, study claims”. They love a capitalisation, and the use of “claims” kind of says it all (though is technically […]
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Absence of Evidence Is Often Evidence of Absence
Reading Time: 2 minutes I get annoyed at apologists and theists who trot “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” out as if it is some kind of unbreakable law. Nonsense. Not only is it the basis of a gazillion court cases, as well as carefully constructed scientific experiments, it is very useful to boot. It CAN be […]
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The Slipperiest Theological Slope – James A. Lindsay Responds on God and infinity
Reading Time: 9 minutes The other day, I posted a reivew by a Christian to James A. Lindsay’s book Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly. James has kindly taken time to respond to the claims made. It now follows. The Slipperiest Theological Slope Theology is a peculiar artform. It posits itself as an intellectual investigation of the […]
Posted inBooks
Is God Infinite?
Reading Time: 4 minutes This post is from my friend James A. Lindsay, a PhD mathematician and counter-apologist. I edited his book Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly and really enjoyed it. The book is concerned with the nature of God and his claimed infinite properties. He has recently released another book called Everybody Is Wrong About God, which I […]
Posted inBooks, The Secular
My interview with James A. Lindsay
Reading Time: < 1 minute Myself and author James A. Lindsay were both involved in contributing chapters to John Loftus’s recent excellent addition to his growing number of titles.
Posted inBooks, The Secular
Two Splendid Christmas Gift Ideas!
Reading Time: 6 minutes So, the celebrations are upon us to commemorate good ole Jesus and his rather miraculous (and dare I say imaginary) birth. Well, he may have been born, but not like that. But enough of that. Or maybe not. I have two rather decent suggestions with which to fill your stockings (Christmas, not underwear).
Posted inBooks
Answering for William Lane Craig: A series from notes about infinity, III
Reading Time: 14 minutes As previously noted, I’m writing a series of blog posts that are adapted from notes I made as preparation to talk with philosopher and author Peter Boghossian’s Atheism class at Portland State on November 19, 2013. This is the third post in this series, which I anticipate will span four posts. The visit to his class was to address infinity and God, following from the theme presented in my new book, Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly.
In this post, I aim to address in my own fashion the question Evangelical apologist William Lane Craig was asked in his Q&A #325, “Infinity and God” on his Reasonable Faith website. Recall that Craig’s Q&A #325 was to be background reading for the discussion with Pete’s class.