Tag Archives: Naturalism

Tom Clark, Empiricism, and Ethics

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Tom Clark and Naturalism

After a two-month hiatus, it’s my pleasure once again to take up conversation with Tom Clark, director of the Center for Naturalism, who also runs the website Naturalism.org and the Memeing Naturalism blog. Our first three rounds on this were interesting and productive, in my opinion, and apparently also Tom’s. Previously we discussed whether his approach …

March 26, 2009 – 11:11 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Ethics, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , | Comments (4)

Four Puzzlers from Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer on why science and religion can never unite: I don’t think a union between science and religion is possible for a logical reason, but by this same logic I conclude that science cannot contradict religion. Here’s why: A is A. Reality is real. To attempt to use nature to prove the supernatural is …

February 24, 2009 – 3:32 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in New Atheism, Origins and Science | Tagged , , | Comments (3)

Question From a Reader: Could Nature’s Existence Be Logically Necessary?

This came to me by email this morning, and there are good questions here. The sender agreed that it would be good to answer here on the blog. I’ve changed her name here, as we also agreed. Hi, I’m a Christian, but I’m having some problems. I was thinking that maybe some naturalists believe what …

January 25, 2009 – 5:32 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Origins and Science, Thinking Christianly | Tagged , | Comments (10)

Knowledge and Evidence: Third Response to Tom Clark

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Tom Clark and Naturalism

In this third look at Tom Clark’s paper, Reality and Its Rivals: Putting Epistemology First, I have just one topic to address: Most thoughtful religionists, paranormalists, New Agers, or adherents of other non-science based worldviews feel, at least to some extent, the force of the empirical imperative: that beliefs need validation independent of one’s subjective …

January 20, 2009 – 7:29 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Evidences, New Atheism | Tagged , , , | Comments (13)

Knowledge and Bias: A First Response to Tom Clark

This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series Tom Clark and Naturalism

Several weeks ago Tom Clark commented here on a blog entry about dualism. Clark is the director of the Center for Naturalism and is (I believe) also responsible for a related website, Naturalism.org. He speaks nationally on naturalism and has authored many articles on the topic. I’ve read several of these articles and exchanged a …

January 18, 2009 – 4:21 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in New Atheism, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , | Comments (22)

Alvin Plantinga on Evolution vs. Naturalism

Alvin Plantinga, the prominent Notre Dame University philosopher, says that if you’re a believer in evolution, you have no warrant for believing in naturalism (atheism, roughly speaking). Here’s part of his argument, to whet your interest: Now what evolution tells us (supposing it tells us the truth) is that our behavior, (perhaps more exactly the …

August 13, 2008 – 7:00 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Origins and Science | Tagged , , | Comments (94)

Darwin-Nazi Link: Fundamentally Wrongheaded?

This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series Darwin to Hitler?

A few days ago Tony Hoffman suggested, Expelled’s charge and the constant revival of this aspersion on this website — that Darwin leads to Hitler — seems fundamentally wrongheaded…. Tom, you keep saying that although you concede that there is no philosophical link from Darwin to Hitler there is in fact a historical one. While …

April 29, 2008 – 10:23 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Arts and Culture, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , , | Comments (73)

Against One-Dimensional Thinking

“Pantalaimon,” a commenter on Thinking Christian, supplied a number of quotes yesterday to show that (in his words) ID is not a scientific research program in any sense, and never has been. Scientific understanding is of no intrinsic interest to ID. Any “research” they may undertake is strictly subservient to the philosophical goal of crushing …

January 16, 2008 – 12:11 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Origins and Science | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (38)