A Couple Links

Just a few things I thought worthy of mention:

First, let’s get the political item out of the way. Here is an editorial about the Israeli offensive in Gaza which theorizes that the Israeli government timed their offensive so that it occurred while Bush was still in office since the Obama administration would be more likely to give them grief.

Second, a pair of articles regarding atheism and theism and the philosophical debate regarding the existence of God. In the Boston Review one author gives a rather glib and ultimately misinformed perspective on the philosophical debate about God’s existence arriving at the conclusion that traditional theistic arguments are inconclusive and (perhaps even) irrelevant to the debate. William Lane Craig responds on the EPS blog and points out that the article misrepresents both philosophy of religion in general and, more egregiously Plantinga’s work in Warranted Christian Belief. While Craig is correct in his assessment of the article by Byrne, I think he fails to address what seems to be Byrnes’s ultimate underlying question: Why haven’t Christian theists produced a convincing argument for theistic belief?

Lastly, on a more humorous note, a philosopher at University College London has written a piece on the eccentricities and methods used by philosophers when practicing their trade. I never knew that John Stuart Mill regularly removed his trousers when working.