50 Great Myths About Atheism

Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk's latest, 50 Great Myths About Atheism, is now available for your Kindle.  Since the school year is just about to start, I doubt I'll have a chance to read it any time soon.  But it looks rather good.  I'd love to hear what others have to say about it.

 P.S.  I noticed that the Amazon page does not list the authors.  That seems rather criminal to me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Argument For Compatibilism

Compatibilism is the idea that there is no conflict between determinism and free will.  Incompatibilism is the idea that free will cannot exist in a deterministic universe.  There's been a lot of discussion over which view is correct.  What's remarkable about the debate isn't so much the stubbornness or passion which has been exhibited by this or that party, but the fact that the very terms of the debate are controversial.  There is a great deal of confusion about what the key issues in the debate are and how we should be talking about them.  As a result, there is a meta-debate within the debate itself.  You cannot engage in the debate without also engaging in a debate about the debate--about what issues are at stake and about how the issues should be framed.  So here's what I want to do:  I want to explain why I think incompatibilists are doing a very bad job of framing the debate, and also why compatibilism is the most reasonable option on the table.  It's an ambi
Read more

Coco, The Book of Life: What's the Difference?

If you've seen  Coco  and The Book of Life , you've surely noticed some of the similarities. At the very least, they are both animated musicals set in Mexico on the Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos). And you surely noticed that they both feature a guitar-wielding male protagonist who enters and returns from the Land of the Dead. But how many other similarities did you notice? --SPOILER ALERT-- In both films: Authenticity is a defining characteristic of the protagonist (Miguel in Coco ; Manolo in The Book of Life ). The protagonist learns the guitar in secret, and against the wishes of his family. This sets up a conflict between the desire to be true to yourself and devotion to your family. The conflict is resolved in a touching moment when the protagonist picks up his guitar and sings a plaintive song in front of his family. Authenticity and family both prevail in the end. Main characters (Juaquin and Xibalba in The Book of Life  and Ernesto in Coco ) achieve fame an
Read more

The Unintended Irony of Birdman and Big Hero 6

Birdman,  Oscar's Best Picture of 2014, is a satire of Hollywood's lack of artistic gravitas.  The primary target is the dark hole of superhero films that attracts much of the industry's money and talent.   Birdman goes out of its way to repeatedly poke fun at superhero movies.  And yet, the Oscar for Best Animated Feature went to Big Hero 6 . . . a superhero movie.  Who said the Academy had to be consistent? I just watched Big Hero 6 and enjoyed a lot of it.  Yet, it suffers from all of the problems that often plague superhero movies.  It is the perfect example of the sort of film that Birdman is making fun of.  (Warning:  the rest of this post contains major spoilers.) The hero (subtly named "Hiro"), a thirteen-year-old boy of limited means, somehow manages to produce thousands of tiny 'microbots,' and gear for controlling them directly through his thoughts.  It's not even so ridiculous that he could come up with a way to build such things--
Read more