Is it possible for there to be an omniscient being? Patrick Grim doesn’t think so. Before looking at his arguments directly (which I’ll save for a later post), I think it would be helpful to take a step back and reflect a bit on what omniscience could be. First, omniscience is supposed to be a… Read More: On the Possibility of an Omniscient Being »
In my previous post on this topic I argued (a) that Craig’s argument against the possibility of actually infinite collections of real things doesn’t work given presentism, and (b) Craig’s argument against the possibility of traversing an actually infinite series in finite, step-wise fashion doesn’t work given a B-theory of time. My post generated quite… Read More: The Kalam Argument, Zeno’s Paradoxes, and Omniscience »
As satire goes, this is pretty funny. Here’s my favorite: Richard Dawkins: To say that it took a Darwinist to do the screwing in of the lightbulb is to explain precisely nothing. The obvious question becomes: Who did the screwing to create the Darwinist screwer? And who did the screwing to create that screwer? There… Read More: How Many Darwinists Does It Take to Screw in a… »
One of the reasons I named this blog ‘Alanyzer’ is because that’s an anagram of “analyzer”, which is what I like to do. I just discovered a cool website that generates anagrams from a target input phrase into one of several different languages. To my chagrin, anagrams of my full name ‘Alan Robert Rhoda’ include:… Read More: Need an Anagram? »
William Lane Craig has done much in recent years to develop and defend what’s now known as the kalam cosmological argument for the existence of God. The core of the argument runs as follows: Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause. As it stands… Read More: The Kalam Cosmological Argument and the Nature of Time »
I recently learned that Dr. Francis Beckwith, one of my favorite philosophy professors here at UNLV when I was an undergraduate and an affable and prolific scholar, has been denied tenure at Baylor University. From the published accounts so far, it looks like Beckwith’s open support of a pro-life, pro-intelligent design position is what did… Read More: Former UNLV Philosophy Prof. Denied Tenure for Being Too Conservative »
I’ve just starting reading a neat book that a friend clued me in to. It’s called The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods, by A. G. Sertillanges, O.P. First published in 1920 and revised in 1934, the book is written by an accomplished Thomistic scholar as a guide for anyone who is interested in pursuing… Read More: Sertillanges on the Intellectual Life »
I’m involved in a vigorous discussion with Ocham and Tom on a couple earlier posts (Link1, Link2) concerning presentism and causation and we’ve gotten onto the issue of the relation between truthmakers and truth conditions. Are they the same thing? If not, what’s the difference? For what it’s worth, here’s my take. Most philosophers, myself… Read More: Truthmakers vs Truth Conditions »
Biologist Eric Pianka advocates using the ebola virus to kill 90% of world’s population and gets a standing ovation from the Texas Academy of Science (Link). The scary thing is that he seems to be serious. (HT: Victor Reppert) Update (4.12.06): There’s been a lot of discussion in the blogosphere over this incident and over… Read More: What Should We Do with the Ebola Virus? »
My friend, commentator, and sometime collaborator, Tom Belt, makes some good suggestions regarding the problem of reconciling presentism with diachronic causal relations (my emphasis in bold): What about distinguishing between two kinds of causality? You could posit a proper/direct sort of causality as ‘the effect of t1 upon its immediate successor t2′. The temporal transition… Read More: More on Presentism and Causality »