- How I Write, by Bertrand Russell. Interesting stuff. What it says on the tin, really. ‘Nuff said.
- There’s an excellent blog post at Prosthesis on “Bad Arguments for Atheism”. Here is a brief quote:
This brings us to another similar argument which I’ll call (again, out of laziness) the “substitution fallacy.” Kuznicki argues that statements like “God caused X” are meaningless because we could easily substitute something in for “God.” We could say “The Flying Spaghetti Monster caused X.” This argument really only works if you already believe that God doesn’t exist or that ‘God’ is a meaningless term. No person who believes in God would say that is a valid substitution. Imagine if said “Andruw Jones hit a home run last night” and you tell me that that isn’t a meaningful statement because I could just as easily substitute “Alex Rodriguez” or “Big Bird” for “Andruw Jones.” Nobody who believes that Andruw Jones is an actual person will accept that argument. The only way it would work is if I already agreed with you that “Andruw Jones” didn’t exist or was meaningless.
This is a good example of debunking the sort of lazy argument that I’m growing tired of hearing as the days go on. Go, read Prosthesis’ post!
- Jordan Davis has a slightly anrgry, but still valid post on the arrogance of Poetry editor Christian Wiman in a recent editorial in the magazine. I couldn’t agree more.