Faith + Reason = Terry Gross

The National Public Radio show Fresh Air just ran a pair of interviews with two scientists talking about whether God exists. The conversations touch on a lot of things we've been discussing in class.

Richard Dawkins pushing atheism

Francis Collins pushing theism

Hey, where's the interview with an agnostic? The media are so biased toward those with opinions.

Links to God

Courtesy of Barry from the 3:30 Tuesday/Thursday class, here's yet another comic on the ontological argument.

There are also two articles on the psychology of religious beliefs that are somewhat relevant to what we're going over in class. Here is a very recent New York Times Magazine article, and here is a similar but older Atlantic Monthly article.

Finally, here is a short criticism of the design argument for God's existence, again from the New York Times Magazine.

Intelligent design is a hot topic in the mainstream media. If you've read a good article on the subject, recommend it to us by emailing me or posting the link in the comments section of this post.

Think [Tap-Dance] God

There's a philosophy comic strip that is running a whole series on the ontological argument that god exists. Here are the comics:

Comic #1: The argument

Comic #2: Existence is better? Huh?

Comic #3: So the greatest possible pizza exists?

Comic #4: The perfect girlfriend!

If you're still jonesing for the a priori, there's also this entry on ontological arguments in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Reading Response #2

Reading Response #2 is due Monday, March 12th (for the Monday night class) or Thursday, March 15th (for the Tuesday/Thursday classes). The assignment is to write a 250- to 500-word essay in which you address the following:

Explain what you think the best version of the cosmological argument is. Then philosophically evaluate this version.

As a reminder, we have already discussed three different versions of the cosmological argument in class: (1) Thomas Aquinas's "first cause" version, (2) an abductive (inference to the best explanation) version, and (3) Richard Taylor's version. Aquinas's and Taylor's versions are in the textbook, but we only talked about the abductive version in class.

NJ = OH Amplified?

Perhaps this is why my vacation to Ohio wasn't that exciting:

John Gorka - I'm From New Jersey
"I'm from New Jersey | It's like Ohio | But even more so | Imagine that"

The"more so" comparison is also used in the design argument for God's existence. We'll be discussing that later on this semester.

Oops. Sorry for turning this into a post about philosophy.