Posted on August 25th, 2008 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, Philosophy.
I was previously discussing a rather simple but unconventional idea: If Christianity has flaws that atheists reject, why not redesign Christianity (or any other religion) to correct for those flaws?
The last time we discussed this, the subject was the problem of suffering on earth. This time, we will address the question of science and religion.
Posted on May 10th, 2008 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, General/Misc., Philosophy.
There are many objections to Christianity. Some of the most well-known:
While many people have raised and tried to answer these objections, let’s take this in a bit of a different direction. If these are legitimate objections to Christianity (and let’s assume they are),
why not redesign Christianity to remove those objections?
Well, here goes.
(more…)
Posted on May 6th, 2008 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, Philosophy, Politics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/magazine/04health-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all
Slutkin wants to shift how we think about violence from a moral issue (good and bad people) to a public health one (healthful and unhealthful behavior).
Posted on January 25th, 2008 by Tim.
Categories: Philosophy, Tim.
Many people argue that the world would be a better place if there was more equality. In the extreme case, equality has become synonomous with “morality”. Would we actually be better off if there was more equality?
Not necessarily. A recent slate article examines the discrepancy between black and white spending on “visible goods” (like fancy clothes, luxury car, etc). The proposed explanation is that black people tend to live in neighborhoods of other black people of relatively similar income levels (compared to that of white people). The increased spending on visible goods has nothing to do with race, but simply a result of increased tendency for “signaling”. The net result of “signaling” is that more money is spent on “visible goods” and less is spent on health care and education.
Does this mean that equality is bad? Probably not, however it certainly means there are significant unintended consequences that are highly unintuitive.