One persistent criticism of President Bush is that he has eroded the “wall of separation” between church and state by his attempts to legislate “private” religious views. The most common examples are his limitations on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR), support for measures limiting abortion, and his so-called faith-based initiative offering federal money…

The Maverick Philosopher has an instructive post on evidentialism and the ethics of belief in light of an argument from Sam Harris that religion qua religion is evil and dangerous. I offered a rebuttal to Harris here. UPDATE: In my original post I mistakenly identified Sam Harris as “John Harris.” Thanks to Bill Vallicella for…

One of the reasons I am always reluctant to support a given decision to go to war is because I believe the burden of proof must always lie on the party advocating war. And since war involves the killing and maiming of hundreds or thousands of people, it only seems just that the bar of…

The Maverick Philosopher has responded to this post continuing our exchange on Iraq. His conclusion: So perhaps the upshot is this. Although the war in Iraq was not a diversion from the war on terror as Kerry and others claim, it is nonetheless arguable that given what we know (or at least justifiably believe) now,…

As anyone who’s studied philosophy (or a strong dose of common sense) can tell you, there’s a big difference between having knowledge and having a justified belief. I can be justified in believing X even if X turns out, in fact, to be false. Being justified requires, it is usually thought, having good reasons for…

Apparently when you change templates on Blogger it wipes out all your sidebar links. Grumble, grumble…

A few days ago Bill Vallicella posted an entry on his blog criticizing what he dubbed “the diversion argument” – i.e. the claim made by John Kerry and others that the war in Iraq constitutes a diversion or distraction from the war on terrorism proper. Dr. Vallicella counters that the war in Iraq can legitimately…

Michael J. Totten makes “The Liberal Case for Bush” today at TCS. I would take issue with this: Woodrow Wilson, good Democrat that he was, fought to make the world “safe for democracy.” There is no more noble or inspiring reason to fight. John Kerry is no Woodrow Wilson. In his most important speech, the…

From a story in the Philly Inquirer: As is the case with American bourbon, Scotch whisky is an outgrowth of unlicensed distillers fighting with the government over taxation of their homemade products. The first recorded mention of whisky in Scotland was in 1494. For the most part, it remained a homemade product for centuries, used…

Lee Smith writing at Slate: …while we interpret the current Iraqi occupation as a situation where U.S. troops are putting down Iraqi insurgents, another way to see the conflict—one more in keeping with the region’s history—is that we are a proxy force in a civil war: The coalition is fighting for the Shiites against the…