A MORE COMPLETE AND UP-TO-DATE VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE IS AVAILABLE HERE.
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A MORE COMPLETE AND UP-TO-DATE VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE IS AVAILABLE HERE. A MORE COMPLETE AND UP-TO-DATE VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE IS AVAILABLE HERE. Serving food at an aid center. Introduction Recently several writers have attacked religious belief as a pernicious delusion [Dawkins2006; Dennett2006; Harris2006; Hitchens2007; Stenger2008]. Victor Stenger, for example, specifically rejects claims that there are any health or social benefits from religious beliefs or participation. Other writers sharply disagree, noting benefits bestowed by religion throughout history Continue reading Does a sense of purpose improve one’s health? MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark is no stranger to controversy. In his 2014 book Our Mathematical Universe, Tegmark proposed that our universe and everything in it are merely mathematical structures operating according to certain rules of logic. He argued that this hypothesis answers Stephen Hawking’s question “What breathes fire into the equations?” — there is no Continue reading The future of artificial intelligence: Utopia or dystopia? MORE COMPLETE AND UP-TO-DATE TREATMENTS OF THESE TOPICS ARE AVAILABLE HERE and HERE. A MORE COMPLETE AND UP-TO-DATE VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE IS AVAILABLE HERE. Introduction In Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion (pg. 23-24), he asks us to imagine “a world with no religion … no suicide bombers, no 9/11 no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers,’ no Northern Ireland ‘troubles,’ no Continue reading Does a secular worldview lead to greater rejection of pseudoscience? Hollywood stars as public spokespersons Nowadays it is not at all unusual for Hollywood stars to lend their public celebrity status to endorse or promote some cause. For example, Angelina Jolie has lent her name and support to international efforts dealing with the refugee crisis. Sean Penn personally assisted efforts to deal with the Haiti Continue reading Are Hollywood stars qualified to comment on science? What do exoplanets, four-billion-year-old life, Fermi’s paradox and zero-one laws of probability theory have to do with each other? Quite a bit, actually. Let us review these developments, one by one: New exoplanet discoveries Depiction of the seven exoplanets of the TRAPPIST-1 system. Courtesy NASA. On 22 February 2017, a consortium of NASA and European Continue reading Exoplanets, 4 billion-year-old life, Fermi’s paradox and zero-one laws Introduction Recently several books written by prominent authors have been published that attack religious belief as a pernicious delusion. The four most prominent authors are Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens [Dawkins2006; Dennett2006; Harris2006; Hitchens2007]. Along this line, physicist Victor J. Stenger, in his book God: The Failed Hypothesis and other writings, Continue reading Christmas 2016: Benefits of a charitable life |
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