Articles

Islam and Violence: When "From Within" Meets "From Without"

Ozgur Koca

Violence is the perennial problem of our species and is in no way specific to one religion, ideology, or culture. A quick look at any history book would make this blindingly evident. It is also true that under specific circumstances the use of violence escalat…

On Terrorism and Blasphemy

Varadaraja V. Raman

The term terrorism usually refers to any act (pre-determined and/or methodical) whose goal is to frighten and possibly kill people. Invading soldiers over the ages have terrorized innocent civilians in many regions of the world. Governments have terrorized the…

The Paris Attacks: A Moderate Liberal-Atheist Perspective

Massimo Pigliucci, K.D

Much has been written about the terrorist attack on the satirical paper Charlie Hebdo, which took place on 7 January 2015. Some of the commentary has been insightful, some full of pious platitudes about defense of free speech by sources with not exactly a stel…

Science, Religion, and Culture in light of Paris and Charlie Hebdo

Lawrence Krauss

I am terribly discouraged, not just by the senseless violence in Paris, but by the response worldwide to both the publication of content by Charlie Hebdo before the killings and by the mass protests throughout the Islamic world to the bittersweet cover publish…

Free Speech is Free for Whom?

Hussein Rashid

The attacks against the staff of Charlie Hebdo (CH), a humor magazine based in Paris, on January 7, 2015, has been rightfully condemned by the international community. Much of the initial reporting focused on the fact that the gunmen were of North African de-…

Islam, Violence and the Religious Mind

John Teehan

The terrible events in Paris brought, once again, the threat of Islamic radicalism to the foreground of public consciousness. Such attacks, of course, raise vital questions of public safety and the costs we are willing to pay for that safety. They also raise q…

Responses to John Martin Fischer and Dana Nelkin

Derk Pereboom

I first want to thank John Fischer for his generous appraisal of the book, and for his astute and challenging comments on my treatment of the manipulation argument in Chapter 4. Fischer’s core strategy for resisting this argument is (at least initially)…

Free Will Skepticism and Obligation Skepticism: Comments on Derk Pereboom's Free Will Agency, and Meaning in Life

Dana Kay Nelkin

Derk Pereboom’s Living Without Free Will (2001) is an outstanding book that rightly changed the debate over an ancient problem. I am certain that Free Will Skepticism, Agency, and Meaning in Life will join the first book as a must-read for anyone in the…

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Review of Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life, by Derk Pereboom

John Martin Fischer

Mark Twain once said about Wagner’s music: “It is not as bad as it sounds.” Similarly, Derk Pereboom has convinced most of us working in this field that moral responsibility skepticism, at least of his kind, is not as bad as it sounds. Indeed…

Precis of Derk Perebooms Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life

Gregg D. Caruso

Derk Perebooms Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life (2014) provides the most lively and comprehensive defense of free will skepticism in the literature. It contains a reworked and expanded version of the view he first developed in Living without Free Will (2…

The Star of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View by Aaron Adair

Michael R. Molnar

The subject of the Star of Bethlehem has attracted much attention and produced many theories about what may have appeared in the skies, marking the birth of Jesus as Christians believe. Details of the ce- lestial event given in the New Testament Bible are vagu…

Scandal of the Evangelical Mind: A Biblical and Scientific Critique of Young-Earth Creationism

Bruce L. Gordon

Young-earth creationism (YEC) is one of the more peculiar manifestations of broader evangelical culture. It continues to be the most common view of the relationship between science and Scripture held in the evangelical community and, unfortunately but understa…

The Wager Renewed: Believing in God is Good for You

Justin P. McBrayer

Not all of our reasons for belief are epistemic in nature. Some of our reasons for belief are prudential in the sense that believing a certain thing advances our personal goals. When it comes to belief in God, the most famous formulation of a prudential reason…

Why Beliefs Matter: Reflections on the Nature of Science by E. Brian Davies

Mark Zelcer

Why Beliefs Matter is a book of philosophy, science, and religion written for a lay audience. Comprised of five loosely connected chapters dealing with a plethora of interesting themes, the book is principally a polemic against inserting metaphysical assumptio…

The Wager Renewed: Believing in God is Good for You

Justin P. McBrayer

Not all of our reasons for belief are epistemic in nature. Some of our reasons for belief are prudential in the sense that believing a certain thing advances our personal goals. When it comes to belief in God, the most famous formulation of a prudential reason…

A Chosen Calling: Jews in Science in the Twentieth Century by Noah J. Efron

Mark Zelcer

1920s United States saw the publishing of numer- ous popular science textbooks in Yiddish, like Z. P. Nathans’ Populere erḳlerung fun Aynshṭayn’s relaṭiṿiṭeṭ ṭeorye (Popular Explanations of Einstein’s…

Community and an Ethos of Science

H. Bruce Rinker

A great synthesis of scientific ideas around the 17th century CE marked the emergence of modern science that later accelerated especially with the emergence of ecology and evolutionary thinking. However, the strict determinism and mechanistic assumptions inher…

Meaning in Life Does Not Exist and Would Not Focus on Rationality If It Did

Stephen Kershnar

Thad Metz offers some insightful responses to my criticisms of his important book, Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), on meaning in life. Here I argue that his responses do not succeed. Earlier I provided two objectio…

Meaning as a Distinct and Fundamental Value: Reply to Kershnar

Thaddeus Metz

I am grateful to Stephen Kershnar for his thoughtful critical notice of my book, Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study (Metz 2013), published elsewhere in the current issue of this journal (2014). He provides a succinct and accurate overview of the book’s c…