1. Antony Flew reviews the Index of The God Delusion

Comment #214776 by tobybarrett on July 20, 2008 at 10:06 pm

This is quite sad. I have Flew's "God and Philosophy" to hand. I've always held this to be the definitive statement of philosophical atheism. Flicking through it now, it still is. Clearly set-out, referenced, ordered, forthright without being offensive, and tackles all the arguments head-on. (To be pedantic, it has no entry for "Deism" in the index but, like TGD, defines it clearly in the text.)

All this discussion of whether Einstein believed in God, how Flew himself came to some kind of Deism he would have previously seen as irrelevant:

"The fact that Baillie thinks that he, and others, have been confronted by the personal presence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit ... is not a sufficient reason for thinking that they actually have" Flew, 6.20.

We want their reasons.

As far as I tell, not having read "Flew's" new book, he seems to have been converted by (charitably) some form of the "Goldilocks" argument from modern physics or, uncharitably, by Intelligent Design. Again, Flew's own book devotes a chapter to arguments from design, refuting them all He concludes "order in the universe by itself provides no warrant whatsoever for trying to identify an Orderer" (Flew 3.30).

Perhaps Flew should re-read his own work as well as looking a little more closely at TGD?

And another quick point. Having seen some of the Christian cheer-leaders for Flew's conversion, do they not understand, as Flew still does, the difference between Deism, Theism and Christianity? Even if Deism were granted, the apologist would still have a hell of a lot of work to do to get from there to a Christian theology with a personal God and Jesus as "Savoiur". They must be quite desperate if this is the best they can hope for!

2. Charles Darwin was not the father of atheism

Comment #201939 by tobybarrett on June 30, 2008 at 12:54 pm

Darwin famously said that his theory was "like confessing a murder". Sounds like his discovery of natural selection helped him lose his faith to me.

Of course, the death of his daughter was probably a factor as well. The Problem of Evil led others to doubt an omnipotent, benevolent god before Darwin.

3. Stop distorting young minds!

Comment #200237 by tobybarrett on June 27, 2008 at 6:29 am

Comment #200191 by hungarianelephant
I'd suggest that faith schools tend to do better in the UK because they managed to minimise the interference from local government during the dark days of the 1960s and 1970s, when a bunch of Marxists had taken over the teacher training colleges. Their legacy is still being felt.<lockquote>

I'd suggest that the reason faith schools do better academicaly in the UK is becuase they select their intake in a way that non-faith schools are not allowed to.

Toby

4. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #156389 by tobybarrett on April 7, 2008 at 12:50 pm

As someone who subscribes to both the RDF and Outpost Gallifrey feeds - this has made my day!

Glad to see that - a few sadly deluded souls excepted - the feeling here towards the current Who is good.

Am I the only one, however, who suspects that this is Dawkins catching up with his wife? Whatever he acheived, she'd always be cooler for having been in Doctor Who! Not so anymore.

5. The atheist delusion

Comment #144037 by tobybarrett on March 14, 2008 at 11:46 pm

Quote: "A curious feature of this kind of atheism is that some of its most fervent missionaries are philosophers."

Why is this curious?

- Philosophers have always held arguments and propositions up to logical scrutiny. Socrates was accused of stopping the Athenian youth from beliveing in the gods.

- Philosophy starts from a sceptical point of view. Descartes started by doubting evrything he could to see what was left.

- Philosophers care about the truth.

It would be curious if philosophers were NOT arguing for atheism.

Post enlightenment, I think most major philosophers have been at least agnostic. (No doubt there have been some exceptions.)

Toby

6. Machines 'to match man by 2029'

Comment #128961 by tobybarrett on February 18, 2008 at 11:17 am

Ah! I did a Master's in Artificial Intelligence almost 20 years ago. At that time many were predicting that AI would be a reality in 20 years time. And they still are!

Not that I think it is impossible, just that it is very easy to underestimate the difficulty. On the other hand, some of the fruits of AI research have become mainstream IT in the last 20 years.

7. Britain cannot put its faith in religiously divided schools

Comment #113547 by tobybarrett on January 20, 2008 at 1:57 am

It is good to see the British Government slowly backing away from the ridiculous enthusiasm Blair had for "faith schools" ("sectarian schools" might be a better name).

But, but, but. This is probably just a change of "mood"; I cannot see the religious groups giving up their control of the education system. Jeremy Hardy once joked: "All religions are keen on educating children - let's face it, they'd never be able to convince adults".

I fear, these schools and their divisiveness will be with us for many years.

Toby

8. Richard Dawkins on The Late Edition with Marcus Brigstocke

Comment #109874 by tobybarrett on January 10, 2008 at 1:42 am

As a big fan of Dawkins (obviously) and Marcus Brigstocke (his Now Show rants about religion are still on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY-ZrwFwLQg
) how did I miss this when broadcast?

If it was over the Xmas period I guess it was because I ignored everything that wasn't Doctor Who.

Toby