Why the arguments for atheism are moral arguments, and why that matters

At ST Ia Q2 A3, where Aquinas offers his well-known “five ways” of proving God’s existence, he notes and replies to two objections. To paraphrase, the first is that “infinite goodness” is incompatible with the existence of “evil”; the second, that citing God is “superfluous” as an explanation for the world’s existence. It’s pretty evident [...]

Burn and pop…

“Cherokee and other ritual specialists used deer tongues in divination, by throwing them onto a fire using the manner in which they burned or popped to forecast sickness or health, success or failure, drought or rainfall….”
– Shepard Krech III, The Ecological Indian (Norton, 1999), p. 155.
Neuroscientists and other physiological specialists use neurons in prognosis, by [...]

Design space? Selection pressure? Neither––or all of the above?

“The notion of order is inseparable from that causality, which is itself an order of dependence. … The ability of a living being to move itself, even though it be only to assimilate and grow, involves therefore the organization of heterogeneous parts of which it is composed. This is why one says of living bodies [...]

The Shroud of Turin: a conceptual case study

Like many less fascinating phenomena, the Shroud of Turin has spawned an entire scientific and literary industry. Some believers are convinced it is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ; many books and websites advocate that belief. And of course there are “skeptical” books and websites keenly debunking the Shroud. Despite repeated efforts to expose the [...]