Philosophy and Literature Blog

"Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could." -- The Sound of Music.      I hate The Sound of Music.  It's the most smarmy, sappy, namby-pambly P.O.S. ever.  Thus, when I heard that Prof. Krauss had overthrown this thesis from the musical, I was elated.  I immediately ordered his book from Amazon.  I've always been confusesd about this issue.  If we think of space and time with nothing in it as nothing, then we have a problem, because I have to imagine galaxies popping into exisence as something coming from nothing.  If I think of the existence of space and time itself as part of the 'something' that is in the universe, then I get confused about what I'm thinking about.  I should be not thinking about anything.  I'm not sure I know how to think about 'nothing' per say.  Nor do I know what it means to say that  something 'comes' from nothing since 'comes' here seems to imply time itself.  If time is part wh...

I was for several years a member of an anabaptist church.  They were among the most gentle, peaceful people I have ever known.   They were pacifists,opposed violence and abuse in all of its forms.  They attempted to live by a supremely compassionate interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.  I found the close cooperation and support among the members a model, in some respects, of community.  However, as I came to understand the way they taught and educated their children, many of them home schooled, some of them sent their children to specifically Christian schools, I became alarmed by patterns I saw emerging.  The children were often taught by adults who were not educated themselves, they taught them falsehoods about evolution, history, and virtually nothing about science.  Some of the children, mostly the girls, went to college, but avoided confronting the obvious falsehoods they were taught.  They boys mostly did not go to college, but ...

I've read about 200 pages of The God Delusion.  It is well-written and easy to follow.  The only real bump in the road is his admission that physics is in need of a little work to provide a more convincing argument against design than is provided by Natural Selection.  In the end I think Dawkins is successful in his overall argument.  There is simply no good response to the response that God would require more of an explanation than the universe itself. One thing I took away from the book is his reaction to the 'problem of evil'.  He seems unconcerned about it logically, since it can be solved by postulating enemy gods or seeing evil as the result of human free-will.  The point of the argument for most monotheists is that God is supposed to be all-powerful and all-good.  The problem of evil certainly deals a blow to such a God.  Most religious people I know end up uncomfortable with the problem of evil.  It convinces many people that there ...

Here's the opening sentence of The God Delusion, Chapter 2: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving, control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." (pg.51)   I hate to say it to my believing friends, but I've read the Old Testament, done some studying of it, and this isn't far off... Comments?