Silver Bullet asked: “Randal, Let me pose a scenario to you: The Christian god apparently once commanded that someone be stoned to death for picking up sticks on a Saturday. Was this objectively moral? If so, how?” AcesLucky has since fixated upon this question like a border collie fixated upon a sheep (or, in suburbia, […]
morality
Morality, the Divine Right of Kings, and Democracy
In the last few days I have been hammering on the objective existence of moral facts because this creates a problem for naturalistic and atheistic views of the world (i.e. they don’t have room for such facts). There have been some noble attempts to sidetrack me from this singular purpose. The most notable, posited by […]
Paranormal Activity 2 and Moral Explanation
Watching “Paranormal Activity 2” last week left me impressed. It is a very effective film. The premise, in half a sentence or less, is that security cameras set up all over a house start recording some very unusual activity. Initially the father is confident that it can be explained by appeal to natural causes. For […]
Gingerbread lattes and Gary Ridgeway
You might call it a case of double dipping. I decided to put a response to James in a post. But since it was buried in a few threads back and the issue is so important (and since I’m in a crunch period this week) I felt thrice justified in doing so. James is concerned […]
On being skeptical of the skeptics
In “Surely you can’t be serious” I wrote that “The evil of the cannibal seeking to eat Jim is, to put it bluntly, a metaphysically necessary truth.” Brenda responded: “Well, that is a claim. One you have not proved must be true. I don’t see how you can ‘prove’ that cannibalism is necessarily wrong the […]
Surely you can’t be serious!
“Airplane” inexplicably did not win the Palme ‘d’Or at Cannes. Looking back, it is hard to believe that it was passed over when you have riveting scenes like this. But this discussion is not really about “Airplane”. Rather, it is about the fact that there are things people say to us to which we rightly respond “Surely you […]
The Sam Harris Sinkhole
I don’t have time to read Sam Harris’ new book, but I do have time to watch him talk for twenty minutes, summarizing the main thesis in a TED talk. And so, thanks to Tory Ninja forwarding this link, I got a sense of the book’s thesis. But first a disclaimer: this is not a review […]
Rape as objectively evil
In my last post I stated that rape is objectively evil and any worldview that cannot count for this fact suffers accordingly. Alexander responded with a refreshing dose of dramatic bravado: “Not so, Randal Rauser! According to Randy Thornhill, rape is actually an evolution of a ‘genetically advantageous behavioral adaptation’ and, in that context, not inherently evil.” This […]
