Another Post about Evolution

This site has been quiet for some time and it makes me wonder if we’ve stopped “thinking in a marrow bone.” I haven’t stopped thinking, but I’m not sure if I’m doing much thinking that’s worth anything. So instead, I’d like to issue a challenge and have you do the thinking for me: someone help [...]

Conviction by Invitation

[This is a "reprint" of part 3 of a series I posted on my home blog, www.ldsphilosopher.com]
In a previous post, I presented Oakeshott’s view of rationality as the capacity to form interpretations of and responses to experience. In another post, I described ways in which the movie Contact provides an excellent example of this. In [...]

In Defense of Elder Hafen: Brief Response to FMH

Elder Hafen recently gave (at an Evergreen conference) what I consider to be a wonderful speech concerning same-sex attraction and gay marriage. It is linked on the LDS Newsroom. This speech is probably the most well-balanced and well-informed article on same-sex marriage by an LDS general authority.
Then, to my dismay, I came across this post [...]

Jodi Foster’s Empiricism in Contact

[This is a "reprint' of part 2 of a series I posted on my home blog, www.ldsphilosopher.com]
One of my favorite movies is Contact, based on a novel written by Carl Sagan. One reason I like it is that it makes such important statements about how we come to know things. (Spoiler alert: Those who haven’t [...]

“Objective” Has to Go

I hear the word “objective” used fairly often. I’ve heard it at home, at the university, at work, and even at church on occasion. One thing I think we fail to appreciate is that this word can have several different meanings and that some of these meanings may convey more philosophical baggage than we [...]

The Restoration of All Things

Many of us compartmentalize our lives in a way that would seem strange to scholars of past centuries. We talk about our religious lives and our academic lives as though they were two separate things, divided in a way that protects one from the effects of an error in the other, as a bulkhead on [...]

Why I Love the Theory of Evolution

If I exposed my ignorance the last time I discussed evolution, I am sure to do no better with this post. Since writing (not very well) about why I hate evolution, I’ve thought a lot about the reasons why I love evolution. I hope to adequately articulate one reason here.

Vulcans and Wizards: Transcending Naturalism in Literature

Today, I would like to consider two different genres of fiction: fantasy and science fiction. The way in which I talk about them will probably be different than the way a literary expert would talk about them; I make no claims to any serious research in this post, but rather I would just like to [...]

Eliminating “Good Luck” from My Vocabulary

I was reading a book of Hugh Nibley’s once and I came across something I thought was interesting. I’ve since forgotten what it was that caught my interest, but I do remember reading something to this effect: men shouldn’t play games of chance because chance doesn’t exist. After thinking about this for a minute, I [...]

Allen Bergin: Encounters with B.F. Skinner, Carl Rogers, and Albert Ellis

The other day, Allen Bergin, a very influential LDS psychologist guest lectured in the History of Psychology graduate course I am taking at BYU. Bergin, probably more than any other individual, can be credited for opening up psychology to spiritual and religious phenomena, especially in psychotherapy.
There are a few very interesting “nuggets” of information, especially [...]

Science is Not Based on Faith

I was intrigued by Joe’s recent post and the hubbub of comments that ensued, so I decided to weigh in on a tangent to the issues Joe and a number of commenters raised. The issue is this: In pointing out the unsecure footing of the scientific worldview, critics sometimes claim that scientists have faith [...]

Why I Hate the Theory of Evolution

A more appropriate title to this blog post would be “Why I hate that the public schools teach ‘creation’ by evolution and do not teach the Biblical account of creation,” but aside from being too wordy, I thought the inappropriate title might persuade more people to read this entry. After all, the second title might [...]

Emergence, Chaos and the Meaning of it All – Finding Significance in the Natural World, Part 1

[This is a re-post from my personal philosophy blog. Check out my blog HERE.]

There are many things which are simply difficult not just to understand but to know at all.
Though I tried my best and still did horribly in my biology class in community college, there was one concept that I gleaned which I’ve found [...]

W(h)ither Metaphysical Speculation

Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” -Thomas Carlyle “Signs of the Times”
There has been an interesting conversation going on at New Cool Thang concerning the nature of God’s brain. Among the issues being discussed is whether God’s brain [...]

Isaiah vs. E.O. Wilson (a play)

A brief play from Wendell Berry’s Life is a Miracle:
Isaiah (finger in the air and somewhat oblivious of the historical superiority of the modern audience): The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as of the flower of the field.
Edward O. Wilson [...]