darwins beagle's blog

This is the third in my series of posts on atheism and morality. In the first post (http://www.progressiveu.org/141649-atheism-and-morality-introduction) I introduced the topic by saying that I was motivated by an apparent attempt on the part of a theist to use the “Without God, all things are permitted” argument. In the second post (http://www.progressiveu.org/173939-atheism-and-morality-wgatap-basics) I outlined my experience and understanding of the argument. In this post I will argue that, contrary what many theists insist, God cannot be the basis for morality.  Read More »

Last post (http://www.progressiveu.org/141649-atheism-and-morality-introduction) I discussed how I felt like I was being led down the primrose path of the “Without God, all things are permitted” (WGATAP) argument. But I never really told you exactly WHAT that argument is. Let’s do that now.  Read More »

I did my very first blog a couple of weeks ago. It was on atheism (see: http://www.progressiveu.org/181157-atheism). The response it got was modest but mostly positive so I was pleased. There was very little activity on it for the at least the last week … until yesterday. For reasons I do not know, I suddenly got several e-mail messages that people were responding to that thread.  Read More »

I will deal with a couple of hannodb’s claims in this post since I think they are related:

Claim 3: The fossil record is equivocal in its support for evolutionary theory

Claim 23: Punctuated equilibrium was postulated to explain away gaps in the fossil record.

The fossil record is often touted by creationists as being a big embarrassment to evolutionary theory and supporting creationism. However the fossil record also led to the creation of a pro-evolutionary theory bumper sticker saying, “We have fossils, we win” (see: http://www.stampandshout.com/_gfx/_bst/_ex/we-have-fossils.gif). That is a pretty big discrepancy in opinions. Who is right? I certainly fall in line with the “We have fossils, we win” group.  Read More »

Arrggg … I had just about finished with a long post when I had a computer glitch and lost it all. From now on I am going to type it up on my word processor before transferring it to ProgressiveU’s text editor.

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evolutiongeek is involved in "debate" with Homunculus over Intelligent Design. He is doing a masterful job, I might add. Homunculus has been making assertion after assertion without support. evolutiongeek has responded with evidence and reason. Homunculus' response to that is to question evolutiongeek's credibility to critique ID theorists. After all, they are scientists and evolutiongeek is just an undergrad. Well, I'm not an undergrad. I'm 55 years old. I have a Ph.D. in neuroscience and have published research that has contributed to modern evolutionary theory. I can tell you right now that evolutiongeek has an excellent understanding of modern evolutionary theory. I can also tell you that evolutiongeek's evidence based argument is a much more convincing argument than the arrogant condescention of Homunculus.  Read More »

The title of my post is a question everProgressive asked me in my last post. If we look at the question on the surface I could answer it in three little words, "I don't know". However, everProgressive asked me in context to a post in which I said that it was my opinion that scientific reasoning rules out the existence of God. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think everProgressive knows that I don't know how the universe began, and is in reality asking, "If you don't know how the universe began, then how can scientific reasoning rule out the existence of God?" To answer that question requires quite a lot more than three simple words.  Read More »

According to my blog, I have been a member of Progressive U 1 day and 28 minutes. I am still learning my way around here. evolutiongeek put me on his buddy list. It showed up on my blog. I had read some of his posts before so I reciprocated. Ouila a veritable smorgasborg of his blogs showed up on the side for me. So I have been spending my free time reading and thoroughly enjoying his posts. I would encourage everyone to read them. However, reading them has inspired me to gather up my thoughts and post on a topic I have been recently thinking about.  Read More »