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Showing posts from 2009

Metaphysical Order

It is certainly natural to perceive a physical order to the universe. Matter behaves in particular, predictable ways, and we have used mathematics to generalize those predictions with incredible, perhaps "unreasonable" success, to borrow Eugene Wigner's famous characterization. [ 1 ] An associate of mine recently offered up an argument for the existence of God which alleged that this formal order strongly suggests the influence of a personal designer. He did not rely directly on any Platonic understanding of math, although I suspect he believes therein; however, one of his key premises assumed that the order itself possesses divine attributes. If not exactly on the same grounds as Platonism, I must vehemently disagree.

Richard Swinburne, and the Chalcedonian Divinity of Jesus

According to amazon.com , it was 2003 Feb 20 when the venerable Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne published his book, The Resurrection of God Incarnate (hereafter simply Resurrection ). Swinburne, 74 years old as of today (2009 Sep 06), holds an Emeritus professorship at Oxford University, and has spent his academic career arguing for the existence of the Christian God, among other philosophical pursuits. I borrowed Resurrection from my own university library over the summer (of 2009), and acquainted myself with Swinburne's formalized thesis therein.

the voting paradox and god-belief

One of the objections I have encountered to my unbelief is that religion, properly deployed, provides a basis for morality, which in turn is quite helpful to society. These objectors argue that if God doesn't exist, then god-belief is highly unique in that it is the only known false belief which is actually beneficial on a large scale. Therefore, they continue, god-belief is made more rational than it would otherwise be.