[To shorten this to a somewhat more palatable length, the original post was split in half. Because my intention was to present a solid philosophical argument to a philosopher, I decided to recruit an honest-to-God scientist to "moderate" the discussion and keep all of us honest. It turns out that my scientist friend didn't really like anybody's effort to make a coherent argument for God. Our correspondence will be included in the followup post, to be titled "The Philosophical Argument for God."] Some questions have easy, straightforward answers: What is the sum of three plus four? How old are you? What did you have for dinner? Do you like chocolate? How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a man? Okay, so maybe that last question wasn't that easy or straightforward, but it turns out the answer is 42.* Other questions, for example such as our existential questions, may not have one clear and correct answer to existential questions such as: Does God exist? What happens when we die? How did this universe originate from nothing? What existed prior to the Big Bang? How was life created from inanimate matter? However, just because these other questions are extraordinarily more difficult to answer doesn't mean we shouldn't even bother to put out any effort looking for the answers. These are some of the most consequential questions we could ever seek to answer, because the truth could change the way we live our lives from day to day. Philosophy professor Dr. Alex Malpass recently caused a minor sensation on the internet when he tackled the … [Read more...]
Arguments about God
One of the most frequent criticisms I receive is that I'm accused of being arrogant, a charge I will not deny. When one becomes extremely confident in the logic of his or her argument, it often comes across as arrogance. And to be brutally honest, I've gotten bored with responding to the average atheist's arguments against God, because they usually aren't very good and don't require a great deal of effort to refute. To those aspiring to become evangelists of atheism (after all, Dr. Richard Carrier offers online courses in "counter apologetics" for atheists) my best advice would be to learn how to think critically -- merely parroting Richard Dawkins, Richard Carrier or Sam Harris won't win the competition for ideas against the likes of John Lennox or William Lane Craig. Or my own arrogant self, for that matter. Quite frankly, the gladiator-style duels with amateur atheists that pass for debate on the internet have become old hat and really don't present much of a challenge for me anymore. They are extremely tedious and very predictable. And after making the same basic argument for the existence of God about a decade now, I've yet to encounter a better argument coming from an atheist trolling the internet. On the other hand, a debate against a serious, well known and well respected nontheist like Michael Shermer could prove to be very interesting and worth the effort for me. Of course, the first challenge will be to engage Mr. Shermer in dialogue, unless I look for an argument to destroy that he's made in the past. He's got plenty of material available on the … [Read more...]
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is one of the most precious and important rights granted to an individual citizen by the Bill of Rights under the U.S. Constitution. The right to speak freely was considered so fundamental that it was incorporated into the First Amendment. Even while framing the Constitution, the Founding Fathers realized that a totalitarian regime begins to assert complete control over the people when individual citizens are no longer allowed to criticize their government. So they took immediate steps to ensure that individual right was preserved. Although one of the most important symbols representing the United States is the American flag, for which brave men and women have sacrificed their lives to serve and protect, in the case commonly known as Texas v. Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag is a protected form of free speech allowed to government protestors. However, in today's madness of political correctness, merely flying a Confederate flag at her personal residence might become the reason a twenty-year veteran police officer can be terminated from her job with no warning. Of course, not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. Exceptions do exist. You can't libel or slander another citizen with impunity. You can't incite panic or mob violence. And unless your last name is Clinton, you can't commit perjury or disseminate classified information into public domain without facing serious criminal charges. And as everyone probably knows by now, you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre and cause a general panic, … [Read more...]
The real minimum wage
The "real" minimum wage is zero. Meaning zip. Nada. Nothing. Don't believe me? Then let me give you a brief lesson in basic economics. Several years ago I was an active real estate investor, until the bottom dropped out of the housing market. Looking for a way to earn supplemental income, I took a special class to learn the business of real estate appraisal, finishing with the second highest score of about fifty people. However, in order to actually earn an income as a real estate appraiser, a minimum number of hours would have to be "earned" by me working on the job as an unpaid apprentice to a licensed appraiser before I would be granted my license. But guess what? Because so few houses were being bought and sold at the time, I couldn't even find a single real estate appraisal business in the Atlanta area that would let me work for them for free. I couldn't even give my work away. Nobody wanted new competition for what little work the market offered at that time. As a result, the $750 fee that I paid for the real estate appraisal course turned out to be a complete waste of money, unless we count the chunks of the plot of my first novel, Coastal Empire. Speaking of which, there is something much better than minimum wage: residual income. As long as I live and copies of my books sell, I will earn residual income in the form of book royalties, which is a beautiful thing. Do the work once, and get paid forever. The only tricky part is, books need to be sold to produce income, so we need to know marketing. By taking that class, excelling but then failing, … [Read more...]
The effort to save Simpsonwood
Imagine what it would feel like to reach into your pocket and find a lottery ticket you didn't remember buying. You check the numbers and discover that you've won the jackpot. That's sort of what it felt like to buy a house in Peachtree Corners a few months ago, only to discover that our back yard borders with Simpsonwood Park. Of course the real estate agent mentioned something about the woods behind our new house had been purchased from the Methodist Church by Gwinnett County, but we had no idea what Simpsonwood really is -- a chance to experience what heaven must be like, a pristine natural experience hidden in the suburbs north of Atlanta. Simpsonwood Park is "223 acres of unspoiled natural beauty on the Chattahoochee River" according to a postcard sent by the people associated with the website www.savesimpsonwood.com. Though I have no official affiliation with that organization, I have decided that I firmly support their cause and plan to attend the meeting to be held this Thursday, June 30th, at the Simpsonwood United Methodist Church located at 4500 Jones Bridge Circle in Peachtree Corners. According to the organized opposition to the plans to develop Simpsonwood Park, hundreds of trees will be cut down to allow for paving roads, sidewalks, and parking lots. These changes will be in spite of the fact that Jones Bridge Park, located only about a mile from Simpsonwood and has much easier, more direct access to the general public. Conversely, the main entrance to Simpsonwood can only be accessed by making several turns and using roads that navigate through … [Read more...]
