The Logical Atheist

Language doesn't block us from direct cognitive contact with reality. It facilitates that contact. Philosophers who express disagreement, by that fact alone, can't help but confirm it.

The philosopher Etienne Gilson said, "Natural law buries its undertakers." It's true. So does, naturally, reality. Everyone knows that reality is independent of our wishes as well as accessible to reason. Everyone looks both ways before crossing a busy street. Everyone who is not suicidal stays away from the edge of a cliff. Everyone knows what the term reality check means.

Apocrypha of miracles.

Would a good God have commanded, "Thou shalt not kill," with these two implicit footnotes? Unless I authorize or drcree it, and This commandment does not apply to me.

A Catholic priest had to resign after it was learned that over his 20-years as a priest, he had baptized thousands of people in Arizona and California incorrectly . It seems he said, "We baptize," instead of, "I baptize" (speaking on behalf of Jesus). Apparently God (or one of the Trinity) is very picky about this. A church authority said "we" is wrong because it's not the community that baptizes. But couldn't the church just let it slide and explain that the priest was merely using the royal "we" on behalf of Jesus? Thankfully, in 2007 the Vatican abolished limbo, that place between heaven and hell for unbaptized babies. So the children who were incorrectly baptized, if they don't get a real baptism, might still get into heaven. Thank God.

 

The opposite of skepticism isn't faith or trust. It's confidence. In what? In reason, in one's cognitive faculty, and one's ability to evaluate evidence and arguments to some extent and to learn which experts can be trusted in specialized fields. Skepticism and faith (or dogmatism) are not opposed. It's the radical skeptic, demoralized by his self-confessed ignorance, who might embrace mysticism in search of a ray of hope. Without reason, he's left himself no alternative.