By Paul So ~ E very now and then a skeptic will point out a counter-example (let’s call it anomaly X) in the universe (usually in earth) not only as an objection against theism but demanding an explanation for how theism could account for anomaly X. Suppose that one kind of anomaly could be suffering caused by natural disasters, accidents, or human folly. What occasionally happens in a discussion is that a theist would respond “God has a plan”, a skeptic might inquire “what plan?” and then the theist would reply “we do not know what the plan (let’s call it Plan A) is but it must be some kind of plan that accounts for anomaly X”. Most of us are not satisfied with this reply and I think for very good reasons. The kind of rationale theists would often appeal to is “God’s way is always higher than our ways”, but this kind of rationale simply does not work. It does not work because the rationale “God’s way is always higher than our ways” is simply a non-sequitur: it is irrelevant to ...

By Paul So ~ I n one of the articles in Ex-Christian called the Trapped with Mennonites , I posted a comment about Spinoza, a 17th century philosopher to try to comfort the author. Surprisingly, I received a lot of likes (approximately 13) and some couple replies from people who express interest in Spinoza. In hindsight, this shouldn’t be surprising, because nowadays anyone who hears about Spinoza will either hate him or love him. People who are mostly non-religious, secular, and free-thinking will most likely like Spinoza. Spinoza’s importance in modernity cannot be overstated, he basically helped established the foundation of the Enlightenment (a.k.a. Age of Reason). Spinoza did this by arguing for secularism and civil liberties such as freedom of speech and freedom from religion. Furthermore, Spinoza argued that the bible is not the product of divine revelation, but created by primitive superstitious men with poor understanding of science. Spinoza’s metaphysical worldview was the...

By Paul So ~ “When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable. ” - Rene Descartes M any people often think that atheism amounts to a dogmatic assertion that God does not exist; they think that to be an atheist one has to produce absolute proof that there is no God. Most of the time people have this impression that atheists are absolutely certain about the non-existence of God since they claim to know that God does not exist, however this impression is misleading. While there are atheists who claim to be absolutely certain that God does not exist, not all atheists are like this. Most atheists are not committed to the view that the non-existence of God is some kind of axiomatic or self-evident truth, even Richard Dawkins once said that he isn’t 100% certain of the non-existence of God. What most atheists would agree is that the belief in the existence of God is implausible, hence unreasonable belief. Most atheists do not feel compelle...

By Paul So ~ W e often hear the claim that “ absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence ”, which is famously quoted by Carl Sagan . WizenedSage made the argument to the contrary and I must agree with him. However, I want to go to the very specific and fundamental reason for why it could be the case that absence of evidence is the evidence of absence. I want to show that the claim must be sufficiently testable in order for the absence of evidence to mean that the claim is implausible (if not false in the strict sense). evidence of absence (Photo credit: Genista ) So what do I mean when I say that the claim must be sufficiently testable in order to decide whether the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence? What I mean is that the claim is something that we could either confirm or disconfirm with any kind of relevant evidence. Additionally, the claim must be able make implicit or explicit predictions on what kind of data we would find if the claim is true. I...

By Paul So ~ I often hear from people that asserting certain statements as true in regards to religion can make someone intolerant. This isn’t entirely hard to understand since in the domain of religion truth and value are often so mixed together as equivalent. If your religious belief is not true then it follows that it has no value, if it is true then it follows that it has value. To say that it is false you are implying that the religion has no value which happens to be insulting people with religious sensibilities. In this sense I understand why claiming that a certain religion is false is considered not only rude but intolerant. However I want to point out that truth does not make people intolerant: what people do with that truth can lead to intolerance. Intolerance is thrown around so much by so many people, including those with strong multicultural sensibilities that it has become a meaningless rhetorical word. The term has become so broad that even calling a religion fal...

By Paul So ~ W hen my dad was driving with me back home from the library he was listening to a lecture by a religious apologist (I do not remember his name). I knew he was a religious apologist given that I know that my dad listens to a lot of religious programs and that the speaker was talking about philosophy. Furthermore, I already knew the conclusion of the religious apologist (no, this was not in hindsight I literally predicted it). I could make this prediction because by listening to the apologist’s lecture for five minutes I already could tell what he would say since within those five minutes he was talking about the history of philosophy/science with the constant theme of the limits and fallibility of human knowledge. The conclusion I predicted he would make is that human attempts to explain the origin of the universe will ultimately fail because ultimately God created the universe. The conclusion I made was roughly correct. The argument the apologist made was the following...

By Paul So ~ I t is pretty common among religious apologists (as well as lay believers) to argue that we have faith all the time. A common argument they would use is the skeptical argument. They that if anything requires justification then so does reason and evidence, but to justify reason and evidence we have to provide a justification that is not from reason or evidence otherwise it would be circular. But we cannot find any justification for reason or evidence we simply have faith in them as much as someone might have faith in God. This argument is pervasive among lay believers who insist that we often have faith in many things such as our parents, airplane service, and law enforcers (although that one is questionable in some circumstances). They might go so far as to say that I have faith when I assume that my chair is not fragile so I sit on it. The problem here is that they are equivocating the meaning of faith with making assumptions. While it is common between both belie...

By Paul So ~ D on’t get me wrong: I strongly disagree with any young-earth or old-earth creationists as much as the next person in this wonderful website. I think young-earth creationism is a failed falsified hypothesis since there are contrary evidences such as data from radiometric measurements that the earth is around 4.5 billions of years old or the vast amounts of data that supports evolution. Furthermore, I think young-earth is so clearly and demonstrably false that there is no further incentive to even bother debunking it. The only reason why I would probably want to debunk it is to show why young-earth creationism can never become a science. However, I do not want to argue with young-earth creationists . I do not want to argue with them for various of reasons but the main thrust of those reasons is that it is emotionally time-consuming for me. I simply cannot tolerate the amount of Bullsh*t that exists in creationism, and it baffles me that there is so much scientific ignor...

By Paul So ~ I t is often insisted by theists that while God is merciful he is also just. This insistence is usually a response to the common objection from atheists that eternal torment (or any forms of punishment) seem too cruel and despotic to be considered compatible with mercy. Many atheists respond in two ways: First, some divine punishments such as eternal damnation hardly qualifies as either merciful or just. Second, mercy and justice do not seem compatible with each other. I want to make arguments in favor of the latter assertion that mercy and justice are not compatible with each other, especially within the theological framework of atonement, since the very meaning or implication of both are contrary to one another. In order to do this I will provide definition of both of them in the form of deductive or syllogistic arguments in the following manner: Justice Tempered by Mercy - Statue located in the Courtyard of the Law School (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Justice I...