A fairly standard argument against the position that human life and personhood begin at conception, and therefore that the embryo is to be protected from the violence of abortion from conception onward, is to point out the great number of embryos that never implant in the womb and are simply flushed away by the woman's body. Estimates cited can be as high as 60%. I would like to suggest a response to that argument.
Read moreThe Fall of a Sparrow
There is emotional power in the smallness of human existence when set against the skene of the terrible vastness of the universe. This power drives what remains, along with the Problem of Evil, one of the most effective atheist arguments. The pedigree of its use is impressive: from Carl Sagan—“We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people”—to, more recently, Gad Saad.
Read moreA Malthusian-Style Complexity Trap
As a Catholic, I have some advantage when it comes to evaluating the theory of evolution. I have no dogmatic difficulty accepting that God speaks in mythical and metaphorical language in the Bible while using the evolutionary process as a secondary cause to bring about his organic creations. In this way, I can approach evolution, like every other scientific theory, as provisional, and susceptible to revolution.
It is in this spirit of honest inquiry, rather than desperate dogmatism, that the following difficulty, inspired by the Malthusian Trap, occurred to me. I have no idea if the neo-Darwinian model has already considered it or not. There may be a perfectly sufficient explanation, but it is as yet unknown to me.
I call it the Evolutionary Complexity Trap.
Read moreWhy Doesn't God Grant Private Revelations to Convince Atheists?
In a rebuttal to the up-and-coming Catholic debater Trent Horn, atheist Raphael Lataster comments that he would be quite happy to believe in God and obey him, if only God would personally convince him of his existence. And, since God is all knowing, all powerful, and all good, he has the knowledge of what sort of private revelation would convince Mr. Lataster, and the ability and incentive to so reveal himself.
This is not a new argument.
Read moreFaith Defined?
The fashionable commonplace used to shout down religious believers is this:
“Faith is belief without evidence.”
If you pry at this simplistic and decidedly question-begging "definition" you will find, though, that what the accuser really means is:
“Faith is belief without scientific proof.”
Scientific proof being the only kind of evidence that the non-believer will typically accept from the believer....
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