The video above (albeit with corny transition effects — I’m thinking Prezy?) covers some of the fundamental ideas in Metaphysics. ~9 mins.
One Philosopher's Digital Archive
Recently I had the urge to read up on some terms and concepts from the philosophy of religion, for clarification purposes. The work I chose (because I had online access to it) was “The Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion” written by Charles Taliaferro. Most of the terms I already knew by description or experience but I didn’t know them by their proper names. So, I figured that I would share some of the more interesting finds.
“Another school year is around the corner. Undergraduate biology students will once again take up their textbooks on a quest to explore the intricacies of life. Of course, these students are rarely exposed to a balanced assessment of evolutionary theory, including its empirical challenges.
But that’s not all: biology students will likely use a textbook that incoherently presents the case for evolution. Surprisingly, this muddle emerges from textbooks’ unprincipled use of theology, of all things. In a recent journal article, “Damned if You Do and Damned if You Don’t: The Problem of God-talk in Biology Textbooks,” Stephen Dilley and Nicholas Tafacory argue that textbooks falls prey to an intractable dilemma.
“What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to Power, and power itself in man. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is increasing, that resistance has been overcome. Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but efficiency. The weak and the botched shall perish; first principle of our humanity. And they ought even to be helped to perish. What is more harmful than any vice? Practical sympathy with all the botched and the weak – Christianity.” -Section 2
“Mankind does not represent a development towards a better, stronger or higher type, in the sense in which this is supposed to occur today. “Progress” is merely a modern idea – that is to say, a false idea…The process of evolution does not by any means imply elevation, enhancement and increasing strength.” -Section 4