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Can We Be Directly Aware of the Mind’s Immateriality?
~ by Ben B. Josh Rasmussen has argued on pp. 85-7 of How Reason Can Lead to God that we have immediate awareness of the fact that conscious states, such as feelings and sensations, are distinct from material states: [C]onsider the following aspects of mind and matter, respectively: (1) the sense of an itch and (2)…
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Bad Lots, Unconceived Alternatives, and God
~ by Ben B. There are two ways to object to atheistic inferences to the best explanation. One is to criticize the reasons these arguments offer for thinking some atheistic hypothesis has more theoretical virtue than the theistic hypothesis. The other, which goes much deeper, is to doubt that inference to the best explanation (henceforth,…
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Harrison Jennings on Act and Potency
Harrison Jennings of the Disputed Questions blog recently wrote a post replying to my first YouTube video and my recent blog post critiquing Feser’s argument from motion and the Aristotelian act-potency metaphysic. This is one of my favorite replies I’ve received to date, so I’m excited to engage with Harrison. Harrison correctly notes that I…
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Partial Explanation: Better than None
by Ben B. We’re quite confident that a cake will never show up out of thin air. This is largely based on our past experience. A cake always comes into existence as a result of (a) the mixing of several ingredients, none of which is itself a cake, and (b) the use of kitchen appliances…
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Good Omens: Reflecting on Death, Heaven, and Hell
by John Lopilato (aka. Counter Apologist) So there’s a new Amazon series called “Good Omens” which seems to be a BBC-like show about an angel and a demon who have been tasked by their respective sides to stay on Earth and win souls for their masters. It’s a bit lighthearted on how it tackles the…
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Attacking Feser Again. Su Me!
I’ve been having a fun, enlightening exchange with Matthew Su, one of the admins of the Thomism Discussion Group on Facebook. He wrote a critique of my video “Stage 1 of Feser’s Argument from Motion.” Then I wrote a whole Google Doc defending my video, and he wrote a detailed reply. Now I’m bringing the…
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Question For A Non-Theist: How Does Morality Fit In?
An Axiomatic Approach The purpose of this blog is not to speak on behalf of all non-theists. Non-theism isn’t a unified system of thought. Instead, I’m going to use this space to lay out my personal view of morality as an answer to the proposed question aimed at me. Along the way I will offer…
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So You Want To Criticize Evolution and The Big Bang
For a significant subset of Christians, terms like “evolution” and “Big Bang” evoke disgust and disdain. Such people don’t just think evolution is wrong, they think it is a lie perpetrated by God haters who want to lead people astray. Not all Christians go quite this far, but many do find evolution and the Big…
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The Problem of Evil: Stand To Reason
This post concerns the following video from Stand To Reason. It’s short, so give it a watch and then see my reply below. Greg’s claim is that the problem of evil (hereafter PoE) is not really much of a problem for Christian theism. What makes it exempt, apparently, is that evil is a central theme…
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RA015: Debating the Problem of Evil With Justin Schieber and Cameron Bertuzzi
Rather than a live debate, what you are about to hear is an audio performance of an already written debate that’s been going on behind the scenes for the last month or so in the form of a series of essays written in reply to each other. The debate was on the problem of evil…