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The Death of Us

The Definition of Death, Contemporary Controversies, edited by Stuart J. Youngner, Robert, M. Arnold, and Renie Schapiro. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 346 pp., $ 54 In just thirty years, bioethics has grown from a group of ruminating philosophers and theologians into one of the country’s most fiercely secularized and influential intellectual forces. Bioethicists sit on presidential advisory commissions, teach in Read More ›

What’s Darwin Got To Do With It

What’s Darwin Got to Do with It?: A Friendly Discussion About Evolution

What’s Darwin got to do with it? When it comes to evolution, quite a bit! But many people don’t understand Darwin, creationism and intelligent design. Here’s a book that makes sense of it all! A group of scholars, teachers, writers and illustrators have teamed up to create an easy-to-read introduction and critique to this important issue. You’ll enjoy the lively Read More ›

Intelligent Design is not Optimal Design

I was recently on an NPR program with skeptic Michael Shermer and paleontologist Donald Prothero to discuss intelligent design. As the discussion unfolded, it became clear that they were using the phrase “intelligent design” in a way quite different from how the emerging intelligent design community is using it. The confusion centered on what the adjective “intelligent” is doing in Read More ›

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A speaker leader woman standing make a speech with a microphone in front of audiences on stage outside in public
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Who declared open season on public religious speech?

It seems to be open season on religious speech in the public arena. Two weeks ago, a group of religious leaders called for a “moratorium on religious rhetoric” from presidential candidates, attacking candidates who shared their personal faith on the campaign trail. A few days earlier, the FCC issued a ruling discouraging noncommercial educational TV stations from offering “programming primarily Read More ›

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Photo of gray-yellow alkaline AA batteries on blue background. Recycling of rechargeable NiMH batteries. The most popular size of accumulators. Copy space.
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The Positive Case for Design

Many critics of intelligent design have argued that design is merely a negative argument against evolution. This could not be further from the truth. Leading design theorist William Dembski has observed that “[t]he principle characteristic of intelligent agency is directed contingency, or what we call choice.”1 By observing the sorts of choices that intelligent agents commonly make when designing systems, a positive case Read More ›

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The Theology of Welfare

This book explores the theological basis for competing visions of welfare in the religious community by bringing together nationally recognized thinkers representing politically diverse strands of thought in Judaism, Catholicism, mainline Protestantism and evangelical Protestantism. Read More ›

Defeasible Reasoning, Special Pleading and the Cosmological Argument

Introduction The cosmological argument for God’s existence has a long history, but perhaps the most enduring version of it has been the argument from contingency. This is the version that Frederick Copleston pressed upon Bertrand Russell in their debate about God’s existence in 1948. In 1997 (“A New Look at the Cosmological Argument, American Philosophical Quarterly 34:193-212), I noted that Read More ›

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Mortarboard with traffic cone

What Can We Reasonably Hope For?

In a memorable scene from the movie The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman’s parents throw him a party to celebrate his graduation from college. The parents’ friends are all there congratulating him and offering advice. What should Hoffman do with his life? One particularly solicitous guest is eager to set him straight. He takes Hoffman aside and utters a single word — Read More ›

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First Amendment text and gavel
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Sunday Mails: The First National Debate over the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment

The Sunday mails debate during the early nineteenth century was the first national controversy to focus on the meaning of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. The debate was sparked by the practice of transporting and delivering mail on Sundays. While the subject might seem arcane today, the issues underlying the controversy reached to the very core of American Read More ›

Photo by Jon Tyson

The Demarcation of Science and Religion

What is science? What is religion? How do the two intersect? Historians of science address these questions by analyzing how the scientific and religious beliefs of particular scientists or cultures have interacted at specific times. Philosophers of science and religion, however, have sought to characterize the relationship between them in more general terms. Their endeavor has required defining science and religion in order to distinguish or "demarcate" them from each other by clear and objective criteria. During modern times, theologians and philosophers of science have attempted to make categorical demarcations between science and religion on various definitional grounds. Read More ›