Is the existence of God probabilistic? It is if human intellectual knowledge is the inference of probability. This essay is intended (1) to acknowledge that
Upon first recognizing the allusions to the Book of Genesis in Alex Garland’s film Ex Machina, one might be inclined to roll one’s eyes. The
“What you seem to be implying, however, is a hitherto undiscovered mechanism whereby the genome takes control of its own evolution, somehow sensing the right
Emmanuel Carrère’s lately controversial The Kingdom takes on a project of demystification: it is an imagining of how St. Luke might have joined the early
Saint Paul writes a message of hope in time of great trial in his Second Letter to the Corinthians. He calls the body a tent,
“Daddy, what’s an abortion?” my seven year old son asked me one day. “An abortion is when a mother kills the child she is carrying
Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But
Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear,
It is also necessary—may God grant it!—that in providing others with books to read I myself should make progress, and that in trying to answer
The Ayer Legend The life of British philosopher Sir Alfred Jules Ayer (1910-1989 A.D.) has become not only the stuff of academic, but of popular
Richard Morgan’s novel Altered Carbon might have been more interesting if it had known what to do with its Catholic characters. It takes place in
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the
Whether ancient or modern, atomists are atomists and martyrs are martyrs. With regard to human nature, “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
The one thing worse than a theology that attempts to draw connections between physics and God is a theology that believes it has no need
Sex makes babies. Life begins at conception. People are born male or female. Marriage is for life. Divorce is not something to be celebrated. Homosexual
For twenty years of my life – from age seventeen to thirty-seven – I struggled with an addiction to nicotine. It was an on-again, off-again
The question addressed in this essay is: Does an analysis based on Bayes’ theorem nudge an agnostic toward belief? It is the second of two
But is it possible that probability brings certainty? —Blaise Pascal, “Pensees,” 496 This is the third article in a series on faith, probability and
The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. —Proverbs 16:33 How do we interpret probability? This article
INTRODUCTION: MY APPROACH TO PROBABILITY This article is a response (of a sort) to Bob Drury’s excellent piece, “Prudence, Prejudice and Probability.” That article in
I did not know yet how far they were from the human heritage I ascribed to them. —H.G. Welles, The Island of Dr. Moreau
When I first read Bob Drury’s article, “Bayesian Reasoning in Religious Studies”, I remarked to him tongue-in-cheek that Bayesian reasoning proves the reports of
Dr. Raphael Lataster is a university lecturer in religious studies and a strong advocate of Bayesian reasoning. His work’s central theme is the inauthenticity of
‘It looks full of hard words and signs and numbers, not very entertaining or understandable looking, and I wonder whether it will make people
