Keith Parsons's Blog, page 6

Humanism for Children: A Reply to William Lane Craig

William Lane Craig
is right. There has been "a
resurgence of interest in arguments for God's existence ."  So-called "new atheists" aside,
what he fails to mention is that there has also
been a resurgence of interest in arguments against
God's existence by philosophers like J.L. Schellenberg, Quentin Smith,
Paul Draper, Stephen Maitzen, Michael Martin, and many others.




Indeed, Craig's
biased, selective summary of recent work in philosophy of religion, like many
of the arguments for God's existence, understates
the relevant evidence. As Draper has
persuasively argued, these arguments, at best,
successfully identify general facts
which are evidence for God's existence. They ignore other, more specific facts, which are evidence against God's existence.




For example, assume
that the beginning of the universe is evidence for God's existence. Given that
the universe began to exist, the fact that it began to exist with time, not in
time, is more probable on naturalism than on theism. 




Or again: assume
that sentient life is evidence for God's existence. Given that there is
sentient life, the biological role of pain and pleasure is much more likely on
naturalism (and nature is "blind" to the moral value of pain and
pleasure) than on theism (which requires that all
pain and pleasure have both biological
and moral value).




Another example:
assume that the existence of objective moral values is evidence for God's existence. Given that objective moral values exist, the fact that there are
reasonable moral disagreements is more likely on the assumption that naturalism
is true (and the universe is morally indifferent) than that theism is true (and
there is a morally perfect being who wants us to be moral).




So at best, we have
evidence both for and against God's existence. It's far from
obvious that, on balance, the theist's
general facts outweigh the naturalist's more specific facts.




But the ambiguity of the evidence is itself evidence: evidence against God's existence.  Surely that fact--that evidence about God's
existence is ambiguous--is much more probable on the assumption that naturalism
is true (and the universe is religiously indifferent) than on the assumption
that theism is true (and there is a perfectly loving God who wants a
relationship with each of us). A loving father does not need "intelligent
and articulate defenders" developing "creative, new arguments"
to prove his existence to his children; a loving Father (capital 'F') even less
so.




But what about the
argument that naturalism cannot be rationally affirmed? Draper has shown that
"the long term survival of our species is much more to be expected if our
cognitive faculties are reliable than if they are unreliable." He concludes
that the long term survival of our species is "strong evidence" that
our cognitive faculties are reliable.




Why should
naturalists be humanists? Craig is right that humanism is not the only option
for naturalists. Again, however, he doesn't tell the full story. God-based morality is not the only option for theists. 
Plato believed that objective moral values exist abstractly, necessarily, and are metaphysically ultimate.
That is to say, they are uncreated and impersonal.





This is important
because it underlines the fact that a supernatural person (God) is not needed to ground objective moral values. Indeed, if Platonism is true, then theists
like Craig have it backwards. Goodness is not grounded in God; rather, God, if He exists, is in one sense grounded in the Good. Craig may not like this
option because it conflicts with his version of theism, but it is an option, for both theists and naturalists.




Moreover, from a
practical perspective, humanists believe that the ability to recognize moral values and handle moral disagreements is much more important than abstract,
theoretical discussions about the grounding of morality. Even people who
believe, like Craig, that God somehow grounds morality still reasonably disagree with one another about moral issues
ranging from war, sexuality, abortion, capital punishment, gun control, and
much more. Humanists, on the other hand, offer an approach to moral questions based on facts about human flourishing. So, again, it's far from obvious that
theism has an advantage over naturalistic humanism.




Finally, as for
encouraging kids "to think critically about the tough questions"
concerning worldviews such as naturalism and theism, I think humanists clearly
have the upper hand here. Humanists have always encouraged critical thinking
through doubt and skepticism, even skepticism about
skepticism! Craig, on the other hand, seems to want people to have faith
in faith; he has even warned
fellow believers to avoid "doubting their faith."




Theists have often
written as if evidence about God is merely "nice to have." Indeed,
Craig himself has admitted
he would continue to be a Christian, even if he saw with his own eyes that
Jesus did not rise from the dead. Humanists, on the other hand, have always
held that evidence about God, like any other
topic, is a "must have." Humanists believe we should examine all of the evidence and follow the evidence
wherever it leads.

Part of a response to: http://subversivethinking.blogspot...

Part of a response to: http://subversivethinking.blogspot.co... 



The argument we have been given -- the kalam cosmological syllogism -- is this:








1-Whatever begins to exist has a cause (of its beginning to exist)



2-The universe began to exist



3-Therefore, the universe has a cause (of its beginning to exist)






Two immediate questions to ask when we come to assess it: (a)
What lies in the scope of the quantifier in (1)? (b) What exactly do
we mean by "the universe"?





Let "causal reality" be the complete network of actual causes. If
God exists, then God is part of causal reality; if not, not.



Let "natural reality" be the entire domain of natural causes. If God
exists, God is not part of natural reality; rather, if God exists,
God is the cause of natural reality. However, if there is nothing
supernatural, then natural reality just is causal reality.





Causal reality is structured by the causal relation. Under the
causal relation, causes are prior to their effects. Note that this
has nothing to do with temporal priority: if there are non-temporal
causes and effects, the causal relation still imposes a priority /
posteriority relation on them.



Question: Is there a first cause in causal reality? If so, then,
causal reality begins with that first cause. Moreover, it might seem
right to say that causal reality begins to exist with that first
cause. (Of course, "begins" here is *not* temporal; it is simply
causal.)





Consider this argument:



1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause (of its beginning to exist).

2. Causal reality began to exist.

3. Therefore, causal reality has a cause (of its beginning to
exist).



The conclusion of this argument is necessarily false. (Causes are
distinct from their effects. A cause of causal reality would be
distinct from causal reality. But all causes belong entirely to
causal reality.)



So, one of the premises of this argument is false.





Now, consider this argument:



1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause (of its beginning to exist)

2. Natural reality began to exist.

3. Therefore, natural reality has a cause (of its beginning to
exist).



If you are a naturalist, you think that causal reality just is
natural reality. So, of course, if you are a naturalist, you think
that the conclusion of this argument is false. (If you think that it
is necessary that causal reality is natural reality, then you think
that this conclusion is necessarily false.)



By the lights of naturalists, then, at least one of the premises of
this argument is false.





Moreover, what naturalists say about the falsity of the premises in
this latter argument is dictated by what is said about the falsity
of the premises in the former argument. If we avoid the conclusion
that causal reality has a cause by rejecting the claim that
*Whatever begins to exist has a cause (of its beginning to exist)*,
then we avoid the conclusion that natural reality has a cause by the
very same move. However, if we avoid the conclusion that causal
reality has a cause by rejecting the claim that causal reality began
to exist, then we avoid the conclusion that natural reality has a
cause by denying that natural reality began to exist. Moreover, if
we nonetheless maintain that there is a first cause in causal
reality, then we also nonetheless maintain that there is a first
cause in natural reality!!



So, here's the response. Tell me whether you think that there is a
first cause in causal reality, and tell me whether you think that
causal reality began to exist with that first cause. If you accept
both of these claims, then you must reject that claim that whatever
begins to exist has a a cause of its beginning to exist. However, if
you reject the claim that there is a first cause in causal reality,
then you are not a theist!; and if you reject the claim that causal
reality began to exist even though there is a first cause, then
surely you have to allow that I can deny that natural reality (the
universe) began to exist even though there is a first natural cause!



What if you suppose that "the universe" is a proper part of natural
reality? Well, in that case, on any view, the universe can have a natural cause.
But most working cosmologists do think that what they call "the
universe" is a proper part of natural reality. So we lose nothing by
identifying "the universe" with what I have called "natural
reality".



What if you insist that "begins" in the argument must be read
temporally. "Whatever comes into existence in time has a cause of
its coming into existence in time. The universe comes into existence in
time. So the universe has a cause of its coming into existence in time."
Well, now we ask: what about those things that exist at the first
moment of time (assuming that there is one). Do they come into
existence in time at that time? If God exists, does God come into
existence in time at that first moment of time? If not, why should
we say that the universe comes into existence in time at that first
moment of time? (Note, by the way, that many working cosmologists
think that there is a part of the history of the universe that is
not temporal. Time may not be fundamental!)

Ontology 101

I’m no expert in
metaphysics, so this post won’t be a polished lecture for a philosophy
class (I do, however, have certification from Honda Motors to do repairs and maintenance on their cars, but that was from 1980, so it probably has expired).  But the questions raised by Jeff
Lowder in his recent post on Moral Ontology  (http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/12/moral-ontological-argument2.html) intrigue me, and perhaps I can
make a small contribution towards development of the basic categories needed to
get the Argument from Moral Ontology off the ground.





I have previously noted that
the use of three criteria creates the possibility of not three but, rather, eight
types of entities (2 to the 3rd power).  On the face of it, there are actually four criteria used in Jeff Lowder’s
proposed ontology, which would create the potential for not eight but sixteen different types of entities (2 to the 4th
power):




C1. Is this entity a natural entity?

C2. Is this entity able to affect nature?

C3. Is this entity a person?

C4. Is this entity a part of nature?




Since ‘nature’ is defined as
“the spatio-temporal universe of natural entities”, it might be possible to
reduce the above four criteria to three criteria by means of the following
assumption:




A. Something is a part of nature IF AND ONLY IF it is
a natural entity.




If (A) were true, then (C4)
could be reduced to (C1), and we could replace references to (C4) with
qualified references to (C1). 




But (A) appears to be false to
me.  Time is a part of nature, but time
is not a natural entity.  Space is a part
of nature, but space is not a natural entity. 
I’m no metaphysician, but these seem more like relations than entities.  One entity can begin to exist prior to
another entity (temporal relationship). 
One entity can circle around another entity (spatial relationship).  Time and space appear to be about
relationships between entities, rather than being entities themselves. 




But (A) might be salvageable
by restricting the scope of the statement to entities:




A1.  An entity
is a part of nature IF AND ONLY IF it is a natural entity.




If we accept (A1), then (C4)
could be reduced to (C1), and we could get down to just three criteria (and
eight types of entities), instead of four criteria (and sixteen types of
entities).  I don’t see an obvious
problem with (A1), so I’m going to provisionally accept (A1) and continue on
under the assumption that we can reduce (C4) to (C1).  Since (A1) relies on the distinction between
‘entities’ and ‘non-entities’ it would be good to have a clear understanding of
this distinction, but I’m not going to attempt to make that clarification here (I would expect to distinguish between entities, properties, events, and relations, for starters).




The Argument from Moral
Ontology (hereafter: AMO) will probably not be successful if the three criteria
carve out eight different types of entities as opposed to three, so it is worth
thinking about how many of the possible combinations of the remaining three
criteria end up making sense.  Some
combinations of these criteria may be self-contradictory or incoherent.  If so, then we can reduce the number of
types of entities to something less than eight.




Let’s take the criteria two
at a time, and consider four combinations for each

of three different pairs of
criteria.




Natural vs. Able (to Affect Nature)




N    A

T     T

T     F

F    T

F    F





In order to avoid reference to the fourth criterion ('part of nature'), I will interpret (C2) as follows:


(C2*)  Is this entity able to affect a natural entity?





NA1.  Natural
and Able

This is a no-brainer.  Obviously there are natural entities that are able to affect a natural entity.  The sun can warm a stone, for example. The sun is a physical entity, so it is a natural entity.  A rock is a physical entity, so it is also a natural entity.  The sun can affect a stone, so the sun can affect a natural entity.

.




NA2.  Natural and Non-Able

This is an interesting combination.  Physical entities are paradigm cases of natural entities, based on the definition.  It seems to me that physical entities not only are typically able to affect a physical entities, but that a physical entity must, of logical necessity, be able to affect a physical entity, and thus be able to affect a natural entity.   Isn't this a necessary condition of being a physical entity?  So, at first blush, this category appears to be incoherent.



But what about an isolated single atom or sub-atomic particle?  Can't we imagine, for example, a single electron existing all by itself, with no other physical particles with which to interact and affect?  Such a lonely electron would not be able to affect other physical entities because there would be no other entities to affect.  Although there may never have been a time when the only physical entity in existence was a single electron, we can conceive of this scenario, and there appears to be no logical contradiction or impossibility about there having been such a circumstance at some point in time.



Nevertheless, such an electron would still have the power to repel another electron if another electron were to come into existence.  So, the one lonely electron does have the potential to affect another physical entity, once such an entity comes into existence.  Apart from such potential, the single particle would not be an electron, for being an electron means having a negative charge, and having a negative charge means having the power to repel other particles with a negative charge.



So, given some clarification of the concept of 'able to affect a natural entity', my inclination is to reject the 'natural and non-able' category as being incoherent.  In doing so, I commit myself to understanding the concept of a 'physical entity' to logically entail the concept 'able to affect a physical entity'.



NA3.  Non-Natural and Able

If there are supernatural persons, then there are non-natural entities that are able to affect natural entities.  Whatever 'supernatural' means, it surely excludes natural entities.  So, a supernatural entity would necessarily be a non-natural entity.  Furthermore, supernatural entities, or at least some supernatural persons are supposed to be detectable by means of their occasional interventions and interactions with natural entities: ghosts appear or make noises,  demons possess people or animals and cause odd behavior or illness,  gods intervene in nature causing storms or calming a raging sea.  If there are such supernatural persons, then there are non-natural entities that are able to affect natural entities.



However, the idea of a 'supernatural person' has seemed to some people to be an incoherent idea.  If a supernatural person is a bodiless person, and if Anthony Flew was correct that the idea of a bodiless person is incoherent, then the idea of a supernatural person is also incoherent.  Further, if the idea of a supernatural person is incoherent, then it might well be the case that the more general category of non-natural entities that are able to affect a natural entity  is also incoherent.



It is not clear to me that Flew was correct on this point, so I'm not ready to set aside this category as a logical impossibility.  But it is certainly controversial whether this category represents a coherent concept.




NA4.  Non-Natural and Non-Able



To be continued...

Why Strong Pro-Gay Marriage Supporters Should Still Be Worried; Or, It’s A Long Way To Tipperary

       In my initial post on same-sex marriage
(“One Reason Why Strong Pro-Gay Marriage Supporters Should Be Worried”
(12-10-2012) I claimed that the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas, 539
US. 558 (2003) heavily relied (perhaps
I should have just said “gave much weight to”) upon the decisions of the
European Court on Human Rights (ECHR) with respect to consensual homosexual
conduct. The point that I wanted to make was that, given that this claim was
true, the Court should also heavily rely upon (i.e., give much weight to) the decisions
of the ECHR denying that the right to same-sex marriage is fundamental—especially
because forty-one States (plus the District of Columbia, and the Commonsealths
of Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands), and the United States itself,
do not legally authorize same-sex marriage.




     I am grateful to rg57 for writing: “I think you're overstating the weight given to
ECHR. The decision in Lawrence
referred to ECHR only ‘to the extent Bowers
[the case being overridden] relied on values shared with a wider
civilization’ and for ‘The sweeping references by Chief Justice Burger to the
history of Western civilization.’’’.:Alas, what I should have done my first
post, but egregiously failed to do, was to have also included the following passage
from the Court’’s opinion in Lawrence,
539 U.S. at 576-77 (bracketed matter added): 

The foundations of Bowers have sustained serious erosion from our recent decisions in Casey and Romer. When our precedent has been thus weakened, criticism from
other sources is of greater significance. [Matter pertaining to developments in
American jurisprudence omitted.]To the extent, Bowers relied on values we share with a wider civilization, it
should be noted that the reasoning and holding in Bowers have been rejected elsewhere. The [ECHR] has followed not Bowers but its own decision in Dudgeon v. United Kingdom. [Further
citations to ECHR decisions omitted.] Other nations, too, have taken action
consistent with an affirmation of the protected right of homosexual adults to
engage in intimate, consensual conduct. 
[Citation omitted.] The right the petitioners seek in this case has been
accepted as an integral part of human freedom in many other countries. There
has been no showing that in this country the governmental interest in
circumscribing personal choice is somehow more legitimate or urgent.

     So, besides undercutting Chief Justice
Burger’s reliance on “values we share with a wider civilization,” the Court in Lawrence deemed the constitutional law
of the Council of Europe concerning private homosexual conduct as providing a substantial
factor, albeit not dispositive, supporting its holding respecting private
homosexual conduct. I




     Well,
let us just suppose that I had indeed overstated the weight given in Lawrence to the decisions of the ECHR. Nevertheless the fact is that Justices
Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer (who were in the Lawrence
majority). and Sotomeyer (all sitting justices) maintain that it is quite
legitimate for the Court to consider 
foreign law in determining the meaning of constitutional provisions
pertaining to individual rights.




     For example, the Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005) (http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/543/03-633/) ruled that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the
execution of a juvenile offender who was older than 15 but younger than 18 when
he committed a capital crime. The Court, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy
(joined by Stephens, Breyer, Souter, and Ginsburg) declared:   

It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming
weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty, resting in
large part on the understanding that the instability and emotional imbalance of
young people may often be a factor in the crime. See Brief for Human Rights
Committee of the Bar of England and Wales et al. as Amici
Curiae 10–11. The
opinion of the world community, while not controlling our outcome, does provide
respected and significant confirmation for our own conclusions. **** It does not lessen our
fidelity to the Constitution or our pride in its origins to acknowledge that
the express affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and
peoples simply underscores the centrality of those same rights within our own
heritage of freedom.

     And in the more recent case, Graham v. Florida¸ 560 U.S. ___ (2010) (http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/560/08-7412), the Court ruled
that juvenile offenders cannot be sentenced to life imprisonment with parole
for non-homicide offenses. The Court declared (in an opinion by Justice
Kennedy, joined by Justices Stephens, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomeyer):     

     The Court has treated the laws and
practices of other nations and international agreements as relevant to the
Eighth Amendment not because those norms are binding or controlling but because
the judgment of the world’s nations that a particular sentencing practice is inconsistent
with basic principles of decency demonstrates that the Court’s rationale has
respected reasoning to support it.

     Yes another factor should be considered. There
are thirty States with constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. A constitutional
ban on same-sex marriage signifies a judgment that any right to same-sex
marriage is not fundamental. Eleven other States have statutory bans; as do the
Commonwealths of Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. Of the ten jurisdictions
(nine States and the District of Columbia) that legally authorize same-sex
marriage, three (i.e., Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut) do so either by virtue
of novel judicial interpretations of state constitutional provisions. The other
jurisdictions (six States and the D.C.) do so as a matter of statutory law. All
this is of great significance because it is one thing for a State to legally
authorize same-sex marriage by virtue of a constitutional provision, and quite another
to do so only by virtue of a statutory provision. The significance of the
difference cannot be plausibly minimized. To authorize same-sex marriage only
by statute presupposes the power of the jurisdiction to repeal or modify the
authorizing statute. The status of the right in question, therefore, cannot be
regarded as being one that is fundamental
in the jurisprudence of that jurisdiction.
Therefore, either a statutory authorization of or a ban on same-sex
marriage signifies a judgment that the right to same-sex marriage is not fundamental. So it follows that a Court holding
denying that the right to same-sex marriage is a federal constitutional right would
not lack “respected reasoning to support it”—domestic or foreign.




     Somewhat similar considerations apply to
public opinion polls. One cannot at all infer that the majority of surveyed Americans
would now say that the Court should hold that there is a federal constitutional
right to same-sex marriage just because a majority of Americans for the time
being say that they support same-sex marriage without further qualification.
Clearly, it is only if someone says that the right to same-sex marriage should
be a federal constitutional right that we may conclude that that person would
say that the right is fundamental for
federal constitutional purposes. It
would be interesting to see the results of a fairly conducted public opinion
poll in which the public was asked whether they would approve of the Supreme
Court ruling that the right to same-sex marriage is a federal constitutional
right; i.e., one that is binding upon not only the United States, and its
possessions, territories, and the District of Columbia, and all the fifty
states—the public being informed that forty-one states, plus the two
commonwealths,  constitutionally or
statutorily ban same-sex marriage. As far as I know, no such public opinion
poll has been conducted. So public opinion polls thus far conducted on same-sex
marriages should at most minimal significance for the Court.




     Liberty-Rights specified in the Bill of
Rights (Amendments I-VIII) are incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment (1868).
These liberty-rights are: religious freedom, freedoms of speech, press, and
assembly, and the right to keep and bear arms. There are other liberty-rights deemed
to be fundamental by virtue of the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments. These liberty-rights include (but are not limited to)
certain rights pertaining to marriage, contraception, early-term abortion, consensual,
noncommercial homosexual conduct by adults in the privacy of the home or its
functional equivalent, parental control of education of children). The latter
class of liberty-rights are (or should be) chiefly grounded not upon public
policy considerations but rather upon the basic exigencies of human dignity and
which are, as I would put it, the essential badges and incidents of free
persons within the United States or subject to their jurisdiction..As the Court
explained in Washington v. Glucksberg, 521
U.S. 702, 722 (1997) (op. by C.J Rhenquist, with O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas
concurring):




[T]the Due Process Clause specially protects those fundamental rights
and liberties which are, objectively, "deeply rooted in this Nation's
history and tradition," [citations omitted].("so rooted in the
traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental"),
and "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," such that
"neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed," [citation
omitted].[Note*]

_________________________________________________________________________________

Note *: I do not
read Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the Court in Lawrence as being inconsistent with the just-quoted passage. In Lawrenece Kennedy remarked: 539 U.S. at 578-79:”Had those who drew and ratified the
Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment known
the components of liberty in its manifold possibilities, they might have been
more specific. They did not presume to have this insight. They knew times can
blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought
necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures,
persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for
greater freedom.”

_______________________________________________________________




     So it is of great importance that any liberty-right
must be fundamental in the requisite
sense. However, what is the requisite
sense in any particular case can be admittedly a matter of acrimonious
debate among the justices, other jurists, and legal commentators. I need not further
address this matter here. It suffices for my purposes to point out that four sitting
justices (i.e., Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alioto) are certainly going to rule
that the right to same-sex marriage is not a federal constitutional right, that
homosexuality is not the basis of a so-called suspect class for equal
protection purposes, and that DOMA is valid. With respect to the other sitting justices
(Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomeyer, Kaplan), I cannot but think that one or
more of them will in all probability conclude (or should conclude) that the
right to same-sex marriage is not fundamental in the requisite sense (whatever
that might be) if only for the reasons I have set forth in this and my initial
post. It seems incredible that a
majority of the Court would rule that the right to same-sex marriage is
fundamental given the rulings by the ECHR on this matter and the fact that the overwhelming
majority of American jurisdictions, including those that only statutorily authorize
same-sex marriages, implicitly reject the thesis hat the right to same-sex
marriage as fundamental. Given the foregoing, strong pro-gay marriage
supporters should brace themselves for an unwelcome outcome. Yet, I admit that all
things are possible since some justices forget from time to time that it is the
Constitution that he or she is expounding.

_______________________________________________________________

     In my third,
and hopefully last, post on same-sex marriage, I shall chiefly discuss the
argument for same-sex marriage based upon the Equal Protection of the Laws
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the corresponding equal protection
component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment:

J.L. Schellenberg's "Evolutionary Religion" Prologue and Chapter 1

Available here.

Freedom of the Press Foundation

Nonbelievers have a strong interest in free speech and a free press, particularly where freedom to publicly criticize religion in concerned.



This is particularly clear in Islamic contexts, where religion is socially very powerful. Since censorship is usually deployed by the powerful in protection of their interests, it's understandable that Muslim countries are often in the lead in attempts to suppress mockery and criticism of religion.



In the United States, religion is not quite so powerful now—perhaps this is why we enjoy a greater latitude in confronting religion compared to, say, the nineteenth century with its Comstock laws and so forth. But this doesn't mean that freedom of speech and a free press are not matters of concern in the US. Reporting and criticism involving powerful corporate and government interests have a way of being directly and indirectly suppressed.



I'd like to be consistent in supporting free speech. I also I don't want to vulnerable to possible arguments that all societies restrict free speech in matters sacred to them—for Muslims it is religion, for post-Christian Westerners it is money and nationalism. So let me suggest a donation to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, as one way of supporting a free press at home, so we can feel better about supporting a free press abroad.

Friendly Atheist: Westboro Baptist Church to Picket Funerals of Connecticut Massacre Victims

LINK

Steve Hays: Let's Put Huckabee's Comments about the Connecticut Massacre into Context

Steve Hays suggests that critics of Mike Huckabee's comments about the Connecticut massacre have taken his comments out of context. He quotes philosopher Jerry Walls's comments on Facebook for context.

Another Fellow Christian Offers Blunt Response to AFA's Bryan Fischer

Remember that Fischer is the guy who blames the massacre in Connecticut on God being kicked out of public schools.



Here is a link to one Christian who has some choice words for Fischer and his ilk.



LINK

Randal Rauser Nails It: Church-State Separation Not to Blame for Today's Massacre

LINK