Author: Michael Egnor
My Question for P.Z. Myers: What Endows a Human Being With the Right to Life?
P.Z. Myers has responded to my post about his views on abortion and personhood. In reply, Myers posted pictures of a zygote, an embryo, and a group of young women. He asserted that differences in appearance between these human beings was an ethical basis for denial of the right to life to humans in utero. I take it for granted that Myers, being a competent biologist, agrees with me on this point: a living human embryo/fetus is a member of the species Homo sapiens (it is no other species). That is, a distinct human life begins at conception and ends at natural death. That is not to to say that Myers and I agree on rights, personhood, etc., but merely Read More ›
P.Z. Myers on Abortion
P.Z. Myers on a faux online abortion poll: “I’m about as pro-choice as you can get…” Unsurprisingly, Myers is “pro-choice”. But Myers’ advocacy of “choice” goes further: “…I’m even willing to say that I’m pro-abortion…” “Pro-abortion”? Even committed pro-abortion zealots don’t generally endorse abortion explicitly, except to assert the right to ‘choice,’ as if one were choosing a salad dressing rather than deciding to take a human life. Myers: “[I] would like to encourage more people to abort…”
“…unlike Egnor I am interested in critical thought…”
My eight questions and answers for New Atheists have generated some amusing replies. Most just criticize me for asking, calling me ‘dishonest’ (that’s for my questions, not just for my answers). ‘No matter what, God didn’t do it’ is the typical reply. One dyspeptic New Atheist was uncommonly amusing. Chuck O’Connor at Battling Confusion writes: Michael Egnor (a fellow of the Discovery Institute – the PR organization that tries to deny biological evolution for the sake of Judeo/Christian creationism and theocracy – see their aims articulated in “The Wedge Strategy”) offers excellent evidence of this obsessive psychological quirk towards certainty when he creates a “strawman” argument against “New Atheism” at the Discovery Institute Web-site. My “obsessive psychological quirk” was to Read More ›
New Atheist Atheology
P.Z. Myers answered my eight questions about what New Atheists really believe. Myers provided his “fast and flippant” answers; yet he provides a fine synopsis of New Atheist atheology. More detailed book-length New Atheist apologetics (Dawkins, Harris, etc) are less fast but no less flippant. My original questions are followed by Myers’ answers, then by my reply. 1) Why is there anything?
Theologians nice to Myers…naaasty little Theologians…
P.Z. Myers was at his hissing best in reply to my recent philosophical questions for New Atheists: …the graveyard of rotting ideas that the Discovery Institute calls a blog…a particularly crusty and dogmatic alchemist stirring beneath the cobwebs of his dead discipline …imposing the cracked and cloudy lens of his superstition… Imagine my surprise when a couple of days later Myers pens a post lavishly extolling…theologians(!): I would never deny that there are many smart people among the believers, some are incredibly brilliant and thoughtful scholars. Theology is also awesomely sophisticated and complex… “Awesomely sophisticated…”? Myers goes on with an unusually long post, part man-crush on Aquinas, part hissing rage, alternately praising theology and excoriating it for twenty five paragraphs.