Global Atheist Convention 2010

The BBC news online reports on the Global Atheist Convention.

Atheists meet in Melbourne to celebrate lack of faith

More than 2,000 atheists from around the world are gathering in Melbourne, Australia, to celebrate their lack of religious belief.

It is thought to be the world's largest gathering of atheist thinkers.

They plan to issue a statement on what they say are the negative effects of religion on society.

All 2,500 tickets were sold out earlier this year, but a religious gathering at the same venue in December attracted three times as many delegates.

The Global Atheist Convention is bringing together scientists, philosophers, writers and comedians, says the BBC's religious affairs correspondent Christopher Landau.

They will be joined by bestselling author Richard Dawkins and discuss Islam and terrorism in a session titled The Cost of Delusion.

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And here is a lecture by Richard Dawkins in 2002 on Militant Atheism

Faith, reason and the Modernists

The latest from Thinking Faith...


Faith, Reason and the Modernists
Concluding Thinking Faith’s series on George Tyrrell, Joe Egerton suggests that we should see Tyrrell’s story as a tragic episode in the history of the interplay between faith and reason – one that resulted from an approach to philosophy radically different to that taken by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Read >>

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Modernism and Catholicism

The latest from Thinking Faith...


Modernism: The Philosophical Foundations
George Tyrrell SJ was among the modernists whose ideas were condemned by the Catholic Church in the early twentieth century, but what was it about their thought that was so problematic? Continuing Thinking Faith’s series to mark the 100^th anniversary of Tyrrell’s death, Anthony Carroll SJ explores the philosophical background to modernism and asks if there is anything we can learn from the Church’s encounter with the movement – how might the modernists help us to think about our faith today? Read >>

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A Philosophy of Action

or why the Batman will not kill the Joker


In a crisis we are sometimes surprised that we act in a way contrary to the way we think we should act. This is because in our conscious and subconscious minds, we have a philosophy of action which forms the basis of our decision making and daily living. This philosophy may be articulated or identified clearly but for most of us, we are not aware of it. Such a philosophy of action is often acquired by enculturation.

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A Philosophy of Action

or why the Batman will not kill the Joker


In a crisis we are sometimes surprised that we act in a way contrary to the way we think we should act. This is because in our conscious and subconscious minds, we have a philosophy of action which forms the basis of our decision making and daily living. This philosophy may be articulated or identified clearly but for most of us, we are not aware of it. Such a philosophy of action is often acquired by enculturation.

read more

Unconventional Wisdom of Peter Singer

UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM Staring into the Abyss Why Peter Singer makes the New Atheists nervous. By Dinesh D'Souza

Unconventional Wisdom of Peter Singer

UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM Staring into the Abyss Why Peter Singer makes the New Atheists nervous. By Dinesh D'Souza

Open Courseware Links

I love people who share their resources online FREE. Here is a wonderful list by Christian Colleges.


Top 100 Open Coursware Links on Theology and Philosophy

You don’t have to be enrolled in a college program to study theology, religious history and philosophy. Whether you want to learn more about your culture or understand how different religions and societies have evolved, this list of 100 open courseware links will help you consider theology and philosophy in a completely new way. For lectures and study materials on Darwin, Catholicism, Judaism, the Enlightenment and more, read more

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Open Courseware Links

I love people who share their resources online FREE. Here is a wonderful list by Christian Colleges.


Top 100 Open Coursware Links on Theology and Philosophy

You don’t have to be enrolled in a college program to study theology, religious history and philosophy. Whether you want to learn more about your culture or understand how different religions and societies have evolved, this list of 100 open courseware links will help you consider theology and philosophy in a completely new way. For lectures and study materials on Darwin, Catholicism, Judaism, the Enlightenment and more, read more

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The vice of accountability Joe Egerton

This week’s appeal by the former head of Haringey Council’s children’s services against her dismissal has once again raised questions about the accountability of those involved in the tragic case of Baby P. Joe Egerton challenges the demand for accountability in our society – does it legitimise our choices?

But is accountability a virtue at all? Does accountability make our choices right, in the way that justice makes our choices just and courage makes them courageous, and so on? Or might it be a simulacrum of a virtue, a vice masquerading as a virtue, a deceiver, encouraging us into error and sin, obstructing our efforts as individuals to realise our essential natures and poisoning our civic society?

read more

This is a good article on accountability and justice. For more details of the child abuse case of Baby P, read the Times (UK) account here

The vice of accountability Joe Egerton

This week’s appeal by the former head of Haringey Council’s children’s services against her dismissal has once again raised questions about the accountability of those involved in the tragic case of Baby P. Joe Egerton challenges the demand for accountability in our society – does it legitimise our choices?

But is accountability a virtue at all? Does accountability make our choices right, in the way that justice makes our choices just and courage makes them courageous, and so on? Or might it be a simulacrum of a virtue, a vice masquerading as a virtue, a deceiver, encouraging us into error and sin, obstructing our efforts as individuals to realise our essential natures and poisoning our civic society?

read more

This is a good article on accountability and justice. For more details of the child abuse case of Baby P, read the Times (UK) account here

Eight Thought Experiments

from WIRED MAGAZINE: ISSUE 15.06

The Best Thought Experiments: Schrödinger's Cat, Borel's Monkeys
Greta Lorge 05.22.07

1. Galileo's balls
Contrary to what your teachers told you, Galileo Galilei likely did not drop balls from the Tower of Pisa; he conducted the gravity experiment in the laboratory of his mind. His 16th-century peers believed heavier objects fell faster than light ones. So Galileo imagined a heavy ball attached by a string to a light ball. Would the light ball create drag and slow the heavy one down? Nope, he concluded, they would hit the ground simultaneously.

2. Schrödinger's cat
A cat is trapped in a box with radioactive material, a Geiger counter, and a mechanism rigged to release poison if particle decay is detected. According to Erwin Schrödinger, the cat exists in two probable states. But that doesn't track with reality (cats are not both alive and dead). Proposed in 1935, the postulate illustrates that some quantum concepts just don't work at nonquantum scales. Also that Schrödinger was a dog person.

3. Searle's room
A man sits alone in a room. Someone slips paper with Chinese writing on it under the door. The man doesn't read Chinese, but with a set of instructions he's able to manipulate the symbols and respond. To an observer, the man appears to understand the language. Philosopher John Searle devised the scenario in 1980 to make a point about computers. CPUs, like his man, lack comprehension and thus can't have humanlike intelligence.

4. Hawking's turtles
The 1988 book A Brief History of Time begins with the story of a scientist giving a lecture on astronomy. At the conclusion of his talk, a woman insists he's wrong: Earth is a flat plate carried on the back of a giant turtle. The scientist asks what the turtle is standing on, and the woman says, "It's turtles all the way down!" Stephen Hawking used the story to caution fellow cosmologists against piling one unproven theory upon another.

5. Einstein's light beam
When he was 16, Albert Einstein daydreamed about chasing after a beam of light until he caught up to it. At that point, young Einstein reasoned, the light wave would appear frozen. The problem: This was impossible according to the thinking back in 1895. Somehow, this little glitch led Einstein right to the theory of special relativity. Lost? Don't worry. Physicists still debate exactly how this mental exercise got him there.

6. Borel's monkeys
Variations go back to Aristotle, but the modern version of the infinite-monkey theorem was introduced in 1913 by French mathematician Émile Borel. You know the deal: An infinite number of monkeys pecking at typewriters for an infinite length of time will "almost surely" produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Seems unlikely, because our minds have a hard time grasping the infinite. Mathematically, it's true.

7. Maxwell's demon
In 1867, James Clerk Maxwell pictured two chambers, A and B, each filled with gas at the same temperature and with a door between them. Theorists later had a demon open the door (without doing any work) to let the fastest-moving molecules pass from A into B, and the slowest from B to A. Over time, the speed of the atoms (and therefore the temperature) increases in B — a violation of the second law of thermodynamics.

8. Parfit's teleporter
Philosopher Derek Parfit is famous for basing thought experiments on sci-fi. In 1984, he envisioned a teleporter malfunction, like the one that made two James T. Kirks in an episode of Star Trek. Teleporters annihilate every particle in you, then rebuild them from scratch. What happens if the original isn't destroyed? Which is the real you? Parfit says both. Evil Kirk would disagree.

read more

Illustration by Mark Matcho

Eight Thought Experiments

from WIRED MAGAZINE: ISSUE 15.06

The Best Thought Experiments: Schrödinger's Cat, Borel's Monkeys
Greta Lorge 05.22.07

1. Galileo's balls
Contrary to what your teachers told you, Galileo Galilei likely did not drop balls from the Tower of Pisa; he conducted the gravity experiment in the laboratory of his mind. His 16th-century peers believed heavier objects fell faster than light ones. So Galileo imagined a heavy ball attached by a string to a light ball. Would the light ball create drag and slow the heavy one down? Nope, he concluded, they would hit the ground simultaneously.

2. Schrödinger's cat
A cat is trapped in a box with radioactive material, a Geiger counter, and a mechanism rigged to release poison if particle decay is detected. According to Erwin Schrödinger, the cat exists in two probable states. But that doesn't track with reality (cats are not both alive and dead). Proposed in 1935, the postulate illustrates that some quantum concepts just don't work at nonquantum scales. Also that Schrödinger was a dog person.

3. Searle's room
A man sits alone in a room. Someone slips paper with Chinese writing on it under the door. The man doesn't read Chinese, but with a set of instructions he's able to manipulate the symbols and respond. To an observer, the man appears to understand the language. Philosopher John Searle devised the scenario in 1980 to make a point about computers. CPUs, like his man, lack comprehension and thus can't have humanlike intelligence.

4. Hawking's turtles
The 1988 book A Brief History of Time begins with the story of a scientist giving a lecture on astronomy. At the conclusion of his talk, a woman insists he's wrong: Earth is a flat plate carried on the back of a giant turtle. The scientist asks what the turtle is standing on, and the woman says, "It's turtles all the way down!" Stephen Hawking used the story to caution fellow cosmologists against piling one unproven theory upon another.

5. Einstein's light beam
When he was 16, Albert Einstein daydreamed about chasing after a beam of light until he caught up to it. At that point, young Einstein reasoned, the light wave would appear frozen. The problem: This was impossible according to the thinking back in 1895. Somehow, this little glitch led Einstein right to the theory of special relativity. Lost? Don't worry. Physicists still debate exactly how this mental exercise got him there.

6. Borel's monkeys
Variations go back to Aristotle, but the modern version of the infinite-monkey theorem was introduced in 1913 by French mathematician Émile Borel. You know the deal: An infinite number of monkeys pecking at typewriters for an infinite length of time will "almost surely" produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Seems unlikely, because our minds have a hard time grasping the infinite. Mathematically, it's true.

7. Maxwell's demon
In 1867, James Clerk Maxwell pictured two chambers, A and B, each filled with gas at the same temperature and with a door between them. Theorists later had a demon open the door (without doing any work) to let the fastest-moving molecules pass from A into B, and the slowest from B to A. Over time, the speed of the atoms (and therefore the temperature) increases in B — a violation of the second law of thermodynamics.

8. Parfit's teleporter
Philosopher Derek Parfit is famous for basing thought experiments on sci-fi. In 1984, he envisioned a teleporter malfunction, like the one that made two James T. Kirks in an episode of Star Trek. Teleporters annihilate every particle in you, then rebuild them from scratch. What happens if the original isn't destroyed? Which is the real you? Parfit says both. Evil Kirk would disagree.

read more

Illustration by Mark Matcho

Tim Keller on Belief in an Age of Skepticism

Belief in an Age of Skepticism?"
March 4, 2008, at The University of California, Berkeley

Noted pastor and author Dr. Tim Keller discusses the place of exclusive truth in a pluralistic society in Wheeler Auditorium, followed by a Q&A session.

Hosted by Reformed University Fellowship, Dr. Keller's talk is part of The Veritas Forum at Cal, following Francis Collins' lecture in February on Christianity and science.

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Tim Keller on Belief in an Age of Skepticism

Belief in an Age of Skepticism?"
March 4, 2008, at The University of California, Berkeley

Noted pastor and author Dr. Tim Keller discusses the place of exclusive truth in a pluralistic society in Wheeler Auditorium, followed by a Q&A session.

Hosted by Reformed University Fellowship, Dr. Keller's talk is part of The Veritas Forum at Cal, following Francis Collins' lecture in February on Christianity and science.

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Rethinking Life and Death

Peter Singer, 1994, Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics, New York: St. Martin's Griffin.

This book, together with his earlier Practical Ethics are his best works. Here Singer outlines his consequentialist theories about human life and death. His theories stand only if one is a true atheist and a fully detached human person living outside of human society.

Rethinking Life and Death

Peter Singer, 1994, Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics, New York: St. Martin's Griffin.

This book, together with his earlier Practical Ethics are his best works. Here Singer outlines his consequentialist theories about human life and death. His theories stand only if one is a true atheist and a fully detached human person living outside of human society.

Should Batman Kill the Joker? (5)

Our investigation into the existential question should Batman kill the Joker? has evolved to why the Batman did not kill the Joker.

We have established that Batman does not subscribe to utilitarianism and Kantianism (odeontologism). That left us to consider virtue moral theory. While unilitaianism focus on the consequences of the action, odeontologism on the duty of actor, virtue theory is about who the actor is, i.e. the character or virtues of the actor.

Batman/Bruce Wayne has very strong influential persons in his life. His father, Dr Thomas Wayne is a compassionate surgeon, industrialist and philantrophist. He believed in the goodness of people. Note that he organises the rich elite to help the poor during the depression in Gotham City and built the monorail system for the people. His death was partially due to the fact that he brought his family to the opera by monorail instead of by private car (see Batman Begins).

The butler Alfred was another influence and served as a surrogate father figure after the death of Thomas Wayne. Alfred exhibits strong elements of loyalty and integrity, looking after the family estates when Bruce was wandering around in search of himself. Though he disapprove of Bruce's nocturnal activities, he restrict himself to sarcastic remarks while availing himself to rescue the Batman and offer medical treatment when necessary. It takes a strong character not to impose his will on others and to remind in the shadow of another.

Dr. Thompson is another who helped Bruce after the death of his parents. She provide the nurturing mother figure to balance Alfred's Yang with her Yin. A competent doctor, she chooses to devote her life to helping the poor and the helpless in slum alley.

Thomas Wayne, Alfred and Thompson did not act out of a sense of duty but because of who they are. It is their characters that dictate their actions, not the other way around. Bruce Wayne must have pick up this moral theory from them. In the storyline, Bruce Wayne:Fugitive, Bruce Wayne has an identity crisis. Is he the Batman and Bruce the man behind the mask or Bruce Wayne and the Batman is the person behind the persona? As expected, the crisis was resolved when Bruce realise that the Batman was a means to an end (limiting the activities of the criminal elements by putting a fear in the criminal mind). This question resurfaced numerous times, for example in the story arch of No Man's Land and Knightfall ( and Knightend).

Batman does not kill the Joker because it is not in his nature or character to kill. Like Gandhi who resort to non-violence to resist a unjustice government, the Batman resort to non-lethal violence to resist a corrupt justice system and the criminal minds. It is in their strength of character that we must respect hem.

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Should Batman Kill the Joker? (5)

Our investigation into the existential question should Batman kill the Joker? has evolved to why the Batman did not kill the Joker.

We have established that Batman does not subscribe to utilitarianism and Kantianism (odeontologism). That left us to consider virtue moral theory. While unilitaianism focus on the consequences of the action, odeontologism on the duty of actor, virtue theory is about who the actor is, i.e. the character or virtues of the actor.

Batman/Bruce Wayne has very strong influential persons in his life. His father, Dr Thomas Wayne is a compassionate surgeon, industrialist and philantrophist. He believed in the goodness of people. Note that he organises the rich elite to help the poor during the depression in Gotham City and built the monorail system for the people. His death was partially due to the fact that he brought his family to the opera by monorail instead of by private car (see Batman Begins).

The butler Alfred was another influence and served as a surrogate father figure after the death of Thomas Wayne. Alfred exhibits strong elements of loyalty and integrity, looking after the family estates when Bruce was wandering around in search of himself. Though he disapprove of Bruce's nocturnal activities, he restrict himself to sarcastic remarks while availing himself to rescue the Batman and offer medical treatment when necessary. It takes a strong character not to impose his will on others and to remind in the shadow of another.

Dr. Thompson is another who helped Bruce after the death of his parents. She provide the nurturing mother figure to balance Alfred's Yang with her Yin. A competent doctor, she chooses to devote her life to helping the poor and the helpless in slum alley.

Thomas Wayne, Alfred and Thompson did not act out of a sense of duty but because of who they are. It is their characters that dictate their actions, not the other way around. Bruce Wayne must have pick up this moral theory from them. In the storyline, Bruce Wayne:Fugitive, Bruce Wayne has an identity crisis. Is he the Batman and Bruce the man behind the mask or Bruce Wayne and the Batman is the person behind the persona? As expected, the crisis was resolved when Bruce realise that the Batman was a means to an end (limiting the activities of the criminal elements by putting a fear in the criminal mind). This question resurfaced numerous times, for example in the story arch of No Man's Land and Knightfall ( and Knightend).

Batman does not kill the Joker because it is not in his nature or character to kill. Like Gandhi who resort to non-violence to resist a unjustice government, the Batman resort to non-lethal violence to resist a corrupt justice system and the criminal minds. It is in their strength of character that we must respect hem.

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Should Batman Kill the Joker? (4)

In our consideration of why Batman did not kill the Joker when he have had so many opportunities to do so, it is obvious that he is not a follower of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism takes into consideration that the death of the Joker will save many people in comicland.

While it may appear that Batman is a deontologist; that the act of killing is against his sense of duty to be not like the criminals he fights, however, his other actions do not support the conjecture. Batman as a masked vigilante is dangerously skirting the edge of the law and have been known to break the law when it suits his purpose. His Kantian ethics will not allow him to do this if he is a deontologist.

There is another system of ethics which come down to us from Aristotle, the great philosopher himself. Named virtue ethics, Aristotle postulated that the ethical behaviour of a person is not from his choice (utilitarianism), or his actions/duty (deontologism). It arises from who this person is. He calls these virtues or what we nowadays call character; compassion, justice, courage, and tolerance. One of the great virtue philosophers alive today is Alistair MacIntyre IMHO.

There has been much talk of character/virtues in leadership especially political and religious leadership. Unfortunately these talks are of character/virtue flaws than of good strong character with integrity.

Does Batman has such good virtues that he is incapable of killing the Joker, no matter how much he wants to?

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