Rationally Speaking A monthly e-column by Massimo Pigliucci Department of Botany, University of Tennessee N. 3, October 2000 – "Whence Natural Rights? – A Dialogue" This column can be posted for free on any appropriate web site.  If you are interested in receiving the html code, please send an Further reading: The Cambridge Companion to […]

Rationally Speaking A monthly e-column by Massimo Pigliucci Department of Botany, University of Tennessee N. 4, November 2000 – "Intelligent Design – the Classical Argument" This column can be posted for free on any appropriate web site.  If you are interested in receiving the html code, please send an email Further reading: Dialogues Concerning Natural […]

Rationally Speaking A monthly e-column by Massimo Pigliucci Department of Botany, University of Tennessee N. 1, August 2000 – “The Rationalistic Fallacy” This column can be posted for free on any appropriate web site.  If you are interested in receiving the html code, please send an email Further reading: Howthe Mind Works by Steven Pinker  […]

Rationally Speaking Massimo Pigliucci Whence Natural Rights? – A Dialogue (October 2000) (Off Site) Dr. Pigliucci examines the question of human rights through an interesting dialogue between two characters: Hypatia and Simplicia. The Place of Science (September 2000) Dr. Pigliucci examines anti-science sentiment and the false assumptions made with respect to the arrogance and force to […]

Columns for Massimo Pigliucci Rationally Speaking (Off Site) A monthly column of thoughts about skepticism, humanism, science, and pseudoscience.

Creation ex nihilo – without God (1997) (Updated 2011) Mark I. Vuletic   The first version of this article, which I wrote all the way back in 1997, merely compiled a list of quotes from physicists affirming that something can indeed come from nothing through entirely natural processes, and that the entire universe might be […]

Stace and the Question of Objectivity in Mysticism (1996) Mark I. Vuletic   [This paper was written for a seminar in mysticism taught by Neal Grossman at The University of Illinois at Chicago in Spring, 1996] In Chapter 3 of Mysticism and Philosophy, W.T. Stace considers the question of whether the mystical experience is objective […]

Internet Infidels receives quite a bit of mail, as is evident to anyone who peruses our feedback section. To reduce clutter in the feedback section, we are now instituting a series of conditions for the printing of mail. In order to have your letter printed by Internet Infidels, it must meet the following critieria: Your […]

Book Review: Dialogue on Good, Evil, and the Existence of God (2000) Mark I. Vuletic Book Review: John Perry. 1999. Dialogue on Good, Evil, and theExistence of God. Indianapolis: Hackett. ix+71 pp. In 1978, philosopher John Perry published a well-received little book in which three fictional friends engaged in a series of stimulating but easy-to-understand […]

Deontological Objections to Consequentialism (1994) Mark I. Vuletic   One can imagine a deontologist attacking a consequentialist with the following invective: It is you, not we, who are concerned with your own moral purity. Your position has the effect of absolving you of all personal responsibility for the things you do. There’s no element of […]

Methodological Naturalism and the Supernatural (1997) with post-conference notes (updated 4-7-1997) Mark I. Vuletic   [The following paper was presented on Saturday, February 22, 1997, 9:15 a.m., at Naturalism, Theism, and the Scientific Enterprise – an interdisciplinary conference at the University of Texas, Austin.] Supernatural forces, if they exist, cannot be observed, measured, or recorded […]

Methodological Naturalism and the Supernatural (1997) with post-conference notes (updated 4-7-1997) Mark I. Vuletic   [The following paper was presented on Saturday, February 22, 1997, 9:15 a.m., at Naturalism, Theism, and the Scientific Enterprise – an interdisciplinary conference at the University of Texas, Austin. Please consider this paper a work-in-progress. Although its reception at the […]

Book Review: Michael J. Denton. 1998. Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe. New York: The Free Press. xix+454 pages. Mark I. Vuletic 1. Introduction. Michael J. Denton argues for many things in his most recent book, but the thesis which occupies center stage is the thesis that the cosmos […]

The Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali and The Cloud of Unknowing: A Preliminary Step in Assessing the Ontological Accuracy of the Mystical Experience (1996) Mark I. Vuletic   [This paper was written for a seminar in mysticism taught by Neal Grossman at The University of Illinois at Chicago in Spring, 1996] Proponents of mysticism sometimes offer the […]

Notes on Christianity and the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (1998) Mark I. Vuletic   Philip Dorrell (1995) makes a number of claims about Christianity and “Many Worlds Interpretation” (MWI) of quantum mechanics. I find some of those claims objectionable, and some of them worth adding to. Rejection of MWI as Christian Doctrine? Dorrell […]

Is Atheism Consistent With Morality? (2001) Mark I. Vuletic This paper replaces “Against the Moral Argument” (1997). As should be clear to those familiar with the earlier paper, my approach to theistic moral arguments has changed considerably over the past five years. Is atheism consistent with morality? Many religious believers tend to think it is […]

  The Moral Foundations of Atheism and Christianity (1996) Mark I. Vuletic   The following article originally appeared (without the postscript) in The Free Mind: The Newsletter and Forum of the University of Minnesota Atheists and Humanists 2(5), January 1996.] Related: The Indispensability of Theological Meta-ethical Foundations for Morality: An abortive attempt by philosopher William […]

Giving the Jehovah’s Witnesses a Broadside (1994) by Mark I. Vuletic   [Note: The following document was written in 1994, at which time its criticisms of Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrine was valid. However, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have since abandoned the end-times prophecy dealt with in this article. On the plus side, this means they have abandoned […]

A Representative Example of Intellectual Dishonesty in the pathlights.com Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia (1997) Mark I. Vuletic   The pathlights.com Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia may very well have the dubious honor of being the worst piece of creationist literature ever written. In this paper, I will examine a passage representative of the lack of integrity and low intellectual caliber […]

The Tale of the Twelve Officers (2002) Mark I. Vuletic   Previously “The Five Officers” (2000), and then changed to “The Nine Officers” (2001), Vuletic has now made the final update to this essay to include a total of twelve points of view. It was, of course, sad to hear that Ms. K had been […]

A Critique of Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1995) Mark I. Vuletic   Note: This document is undergoing modification. Also, the author intends to eventually produce a revised and expanded version of this review. [A previous version of this document has been published in Apologia: The Journal of the Wellington Christian Apologetics Society, […]

REVIEW OF “EVOLUTION: A THEORY IN CRISIS” BY MICHAEL DENTON Keith B. Miller Department of Geology Kansas State University Manhattan, KS 66506-3201 There is much confusion in the popularized literature about the evidence for macroevolutionary change in the fossil record. Unfortunately, the discussion of evolution within certain parts of the Christian community has been greatly […]

Response to Massimo Pigliucci’s Review of The Design Inference Mark I. Vuletic   Massimo Pigliucci’s review of William Dembski’s The DesignInference puzzles me. What puzzles me most is lack of substantive comment about the book itself–Pigliucci’s "review" reads for the most part like an extended diatribe against the intelligent design (i.e. creationist) movement. Do not […]

In Defense of Evolution (2003, updated 2006) Mark I. Vuletic   Introduction[1] The world presents to us vast evidence confirming the evolutionary history of life, and nothing even remotely resembling a disproof of it. This is an inexplicable mystery if, as creationists insist, God created the variety of life through a means other than evolution. […]

Lori’s Coffee Tip(s) of the Month by Lori Watson June, 1997 Store your coffee beans in an airtight opaque container at room temperature. It is a common miconception that one ought to store them in the freezer. However, this potentially exposes the beans to light, and moisture, which causes spoilage. There are two kinds of […]

Cataract (2009) Mark Vuletic “I firmly declare,” averred the pious Dr. M, “that the existence of horrendous suffering does not count in the slightest against the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and infinitely benevolent God.” “How do you figure?” replied the skeptical Dr. X. “Think of all of the horrible things in the world we […]

Does Big Bang Cosmology Prove the Universe Had a Beginning? (2000) Mark I. Vuletic There are a number of arguments for the existence of God which depend, at least in part, upon the notion that the universe had a beginning. Sometimes apologists appeal to Big Bang cosmology to support that notion. For instance, according to […]