If…, then…?

If Heaven is just an illusory way to assuage the fear of mortality, then is the assertion of nonexistence upon death a way to assuage the fear of eternal retribution?
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If euthanasia is so good, why do we try talking people down from suicide?
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If scientific theories do not simply “fall out” from [...]

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 [...]

Laws or wills?

The following are excerpts from my latest post at FCA. Go there to see the unusually lengthy combox thread:
Is there any law that dictates what the most basic laws of physics are? Are the laws of the universe self-ratifying, or are they in need of some grounding principle to account for their exact correlations?
If [...]

Thank non-God for Science and thank Science for non-God!

So, the claim is that modern physical science is the deliverance of our Stone Age brains from the cognitive myopia we evolved over eons, yes?
Science at last gives us the precise apparatus we need as a species to overcome the crude folk theories of ontology, physics, biology, and ethics which we have simply picked up [...]

Why, naturalism, naturally…

If you punch 2 + 2 and then = into a calculator, and it shows 5, is it wrong? Naturalistically, nothing malfunctioned in the calculator; its circuitry is flawless. Why is the calculator wrong about its sum but your “neurolator” is correct?
A naturalist believes that what he is saying and typing at any point in [...]

The Metaphysics of Naturalism

[This is a guest article posted for purposes of constructive discussion between a "naturalist" philosopher and Catholic philosophers. For myself, there isn't much in its content that I can object to, even as an opponent of metaphysical naturalism. Perhaps that means I've misunderstood David. If so, that question would be a good way to start [...]