Advocating Reality: A more fitting blog name, no?

'Derek the Advocate' was just too plain.  This is better, I think.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Methodological Naturalism Explained - Why Science Can't Consider The Supernatural

I am going to make a bold statement. "For all practical purposes, it is always irrational to assign a supernatural cause to an event observed in the natural world." Now I am going to attempt to back up that statement. The only reason (of which I am aware) to assign a supernatural cause to a given event is the following: "I do not currently understand the details and outcome of this observation given my current state of knowledge and understanding of the natural world." Also, I suspect that many of you would prefer to add the caveat "And the details and outcome of this event are consistent with a particular supernatural belief or belief system", but that is clearly an example of circular reasoning and cannot be a valid part of this discussion.  The supernatural belief or belief system is, in fact, the item in question, or to be more accurate, the observation cannot be assigned a cause which has not been demonstrated, it can only be assigned a hypo...
Read more

Atheist / Christian T-Shirt Challenge - Given by The Atheist Advocate

I recently shared a link to a great little article by The Atheist Advocate on patheos.com in which Christians are challenged to wear an Atheist t-shirt for one week, in order to learn about what persecution  means, due to the apparent misunderstanding which is often spread by Christians. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/04/25/challenge-to-christians-wear-an-atheist-t-shirt-and-gauge-reactions/ Pretty good idea, no? Now, I know that '____ Challenge' is currently extremely cliche, but would a good name for this be 'Persecution Challenge'?  Too emotive maybe? I may have found a taker, and I think it would be a really great experience, probably for both of us.  You see, she's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I would be required to wear a Mormon t-shirt for one week, while she would be required to wear an Atheist t-shirt during the same time.   If we both agree on this, how should we document eve...
Read more

Evolution: Theory, Law, or Fact?

Evolution is often decried as 'theoretical' because the term 'theory' is attached to it.   Scientists use the word 'Theory' in a very different way than other people do.  It is much more similar to a mathematical 'Theorem' than it is to the traditional use of the word 'theory'. Hopefully you remember high school geometry, but in case you don't, here is a refresher on the Pythagorean Theorem: On any right triangle (a triangle with one 90 degree angle) the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, and this is reflected in the formula a² + b² = c². No matter what, each and every right triangle abides by this theorem.  Every time it has been tested, it has given the correct result.  The theorem would be easily falsified (proven wrong) if a single right triangle was found that did not exhibit the dimensions predicted by the theorem.  Of course, this is entirely unlikely, if not impossible, so ...
Read more