Paulm12

I think you bring up a good point about the fine tuning argument, but I also get the impression you misunderstand it. The fine tuning argument is used...

I appreciate both of your perspectives, thanks. I understand why the government has a desire to be involved in marriage because married couples tend t...

Thanks for your perspective, this makes a lot of sense and is a good answer. As you said I think what the government (and what most people think) is b...

There’s lots of interesting work like Theistic Evolution, things like that that try to synthesize natural selection with the idea of a transcendent cr...

I do appreciate the quality control here. I’ve been using the site less recently because I’ve been encountering low quality posts, insults, extreme pa...

I'm one of those people (along with Augustine, Aquinas) who thinks the Euthyphro dilemma is a false one. Some atheists (like Alexander Rosenberg) seem...

To be fair, I've never personally met a theist who has said that God/gods is/are a mystery. Most (usually Christians) argue that one can come to know ...

I agree that avoiding harming others is indeed straightforward and practical, and I think it serves as a good guide for our own behavior. The issue I ...

I don't need God to act "morally" in the sense that I think plenty of people who don't believe in God act morally. But personally, I need God as an ex...

Personally, I'm committed to moral realism. And this led me to theism, or the belief that God exists to explain moral realism. Of course, there are th...

Yeah, this is how I see it too. Hopefully there are some basic principles most people can agree on, and then build a society off of these principles t...

The issue I think is that while we are indeed “hard wired” for empathy and compassion, this doesn’t tell us why someone who isn’t hard wired for empat...

Both sides think they have the moral high ground in this debate, and are protecting human rights. Unfortunately, I don’t think either side will be hap...

Personally, I don’t think it makes sense to only allow abortions when rape is involved, and this is because people may falsely accuse others of rape i...

I think a closely related concept are things like human rights/natural rights. What does it mean to be born with “human rights” and who gets to decide...

One of the tricky things here is individualism itself is a very western idea, influenced a lot by Judeo-Christian ideas. For many religions, life is s...

The interesting thing here is that the main people arguing these cases (admissions, etc) are Asians, as they are claimed to be overrepresented, even m...

I’d chime in to say the US isn’t a direct democracy and wasn’t designed to be either. The founding fathers were wary of the common man’s ability to vo...

I don't want to derail this thread too much, but Is an excellent question. In my view, Einstein could have still contributed by submitting papers, as ...

I agree. While I didn’t appreciate his anti-theistic posting and general rhetoric, I figured it was something I’d just ignore. Whether it was ban wort...

I think it’s possible to both sin knowingly and unknowingly. The standard position by most Christian and Catholic Churches is more similar to that of ...

I think you both have a good point. Indeed I think it's totally fair to say what the praying coach was doing had nothing to do with the teachings of J...

Creationism? How did that get mentioned? I agree with most of Tom's sentiment, but I think he misses the point, which is that for some of these evange...

I think it’s a bit more technical. I can’t imagine anyone arguing that he was praying “alone” as other students clearly and visually joined him. The q...

I agree; in fact the more options there are, the better. I'm sure there are people who are either resistant to religion or have had a bad experience s...

This is a good point. Many recovery programs (AA) along with groups like Boy Scouts have references to a "higher power" or some idea of "god/God," tho...

This is true. But effect prong of the Lemon Test (Lemon v Kurtzman) states and the entanglement prong states So it seems up to interpretation whether ...

I don't disagree that it is unprofessional. In fact, I'd go farther and say if Kennedy is a Christian, it is contradictory to the teachings of Jesus (...

I agree; the issue comes down to whether students were coerced into participating/ostracized for not participating. And it seems like the facts from e...

I hadn't ever thought of an evolutionary debunking argument against reason itself, but I think you present a good case for it. I posted here a while b...

Perhaps. But even so, does that mean the government has (or should have) the right to intervene in these cases?

I agree, especially about the part about church and state being separated (and I imagine most Americans would as well, religious and non-religious). H...

I think with a more conservative court, both Dobbs v Jackson and Kennedy v Bremerton (which you brought up) tell a similar story of reducing the feder...

I wonder if you're familiar with Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism. He follows a similar line of reasoning as you do, though he mak...

Wow, that’s actually a lot more people having abortions than I would have expected. Pretty surprising to me. This is how I see it as well. The Supreme...

For your first question, the court was able to overturn Roe v Wade because the reasoning behind it was (in their eyes) legally dubious and arguably un...

I read Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind which makes a case for why conservatives may have an advantage over liberals when it comes to many peoples'...

I agree. At the end of the day, most people care more about the economy than ideological issues, especially one like abortion that doesn't really affe...

Ahh yes, I realize I was being too loose with words in this case. Even Jesus is quoted as saying “Do not think that I have come to abolish Law or the ...

I think a good case could be made for early Christianity adapting ideas (thus a "stew") from Cynicism, Stoicism, and Judaism (Stoicism in particular b...

If you look at the core teachings of Jesus, you have things such as Love God. Love your neighbor and enemies. Treat others the way you want to be trea...

I think the two main reasons Christianity spread was 1) because of Jesus and 2) (whether or not Christianity is “true” in the sense that Jesus rose fr...

I think this approach to ethics presupposes a metaethical view. In particular, it assumes the value of life and perhaps the value of complexity as you...

I see what you mean. My concern is that (at least in the US), K-12 education isn’t exactly preparing students with the tools to live in a somewhat dem...

In my experience at a small private university, student "comfort" is prioritized (though I had professors, especially in the humanities, really try to...

Very good point. As a matter of fact, what about any conspiracy theories or fringe theories, like the Christ myth theory? If we take the criterion of ...

I actually think the main objection to anything supernatural occurring is actually a statistical argument. There's an implicit assumption that whateve...

A better title for this thread might have been 'Intelligent design - a reasonable hypothesis?' I think about that too, but in my experience hypothesis...

I agree. In fact, my guess is the ID movement specifically avoids explicitly referring to a God (capital “G,” as in the Abrahamic sense) so it could b...

The whole conversation about physicalism and metaphysical naturalism is a very interesting one, and as mentioned is very much ingrained in our culture...