Blaise Pascal was a seventeenth-century polymath, a master of French prose who contributed to the advance of physics (especially hydraulics), laid the foundations for the modern theory of probability, discovered that air gets thinner as we ascend from Earth’s surface,…
Children’s right to education
Teachers in public school classrooms sometimes recite a Christian prayer or voice explicitly religious sentiments. Public school teachers aren’t supposed to do this. It violates the separation of church and state. But some teachers nonetheless view it as their religious…
Contingency Argument
William Lane Craig presents a version of Wilhelm Leibniz’s contingency argument as follows:[1]+ Anything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause. If the universe has an…
Transcendental argument
The transcendental argument for God (TAG) holds that logical absolutes prove God’s existence. What, you may ask, is a transcendental argument? And what is a logical absolute? A transcendental argument is not a particular argument. It’s a kind of argument. It’s…
Deputy dimwit
Religion is the most striking mental malfunction of our species. But there are mental malfunctions that don’t lead to or from religion. Sometimes people just refuse to think—nothing to do with religion. Consider, as a case in point, the following…
Have a blessed day
It has become trendy to say, “Have a blessed day.” Store clerks, waiters, and others who say this are probably just trying to be courteous. But I wish they would stop. It’s annoying. I’m fine with people wishing me a…