The Carrier-Marshall Debate: My Eighth Reply

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one; for the rest, our index. We are now discussing what I call the...

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: Marshall’s Sixth Response

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For subsequent entries, see index. Now we are focusing on...

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: My Seventh Reply

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one; for the rest, our index. We are now discussing what I call the...

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: My Sixth Reply

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For other entries, see index. We’ve just concluded our...

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: Index

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I have engaged a debate on whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. Background and format are explained with Dr. Wallace’s opening statement. For convenience all entries in the debate will be...

No, Tom Holland, It Wasn’t Christian Values That Saved the West

Novelist Tom Holland just wrote an article for The Spectator titled “Thank God for Western Values,” declaring the “debt of the West to Christianity is more deeply rooted than many might presume.” Everything he says is false. He has since...

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: My First Reply

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For all subsequent entries, see index. That the Evidence...

The Carrier-McDurmon Debate: Which Worldview Produces the Better World?

Joel McDurmon is an odd fellow. Founder of American Vision, he is simultaneously an old school arch-conservative who thinks all taxation is theft and public schools must be abolished, and a passionate, well-reasoned advocate for liberal talking points like that the...

The Real Basis of a Moral World

What worldview is better for the world? That’s a question I debated with Joel McDurmon of American Vision just the other day in Houston. I’ll announce the video when it goes live. But one of the matters that came up centrally in that debate was moral...

Speaking in Cincinnati!

I will be speaking for the Free Inquiry Group on the science and philosophy of moral reasoning in Cincinnati, Ohio, this coming October 23rd, Tuesday 7pm, at the First Unitarian Church of Cincinnati on 536 Linton Street. Details on Facebook and Meetup. Description:...

Money Buys Happiness? Not After You Hit Six Figures

Five years ago I took Michael Shermer to task for pushing pseudoscience in his bungled attempt to argue (in agreement with Sam Harris and myself) that moral philosophy could and should be retooled into a proper empirical science, the same way every other philosophical...

Your Own Moral Reasoning: Some Things to Consider

We all know the Golden Rule, taught supposedly by the Jewish Rabbi Jesus in the West and the Confucian scholar Mo Tzu in the East: “do to others as you would have done for yourself.” Or as the equally ancient Rabbi Hillel, or Confucius himself, said, “do not do to...

Eight Philosophical Questions We’ll Never Solve?

Years back George Dvorsky wrote a popular article at io9 titled “8 Great Philosophical Questions We’ll Never Solve.” It’s interesting because all eight are triggers for the same cognitive biases sustaining irrational theistic belief. Is it true...

My Debate with Ray Comfort: Can Moral Facts Exist without a God?

Last Saturday, I was recruited to live-debate Ray Comfort on Facebook. That’s right. The banana man himself. Warlock to Kirk Cameron’s imp. Mr. “Everyone Is an Adulterer” (including Mother Theresa and that unborn fetus over there). Topic? “Can...