Dawkins can certainly get tiresome, but this conversation with Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg (at the University of Texas, by the way) is quite good. It provides the simple reason why design and fine-tuning arguments for the existence of God, even on their best days, get you nowhere.
I’ve been a quasi-vegetarian now for about three months. It’s my second or third phase not eating meat, but this time I think it will stick. I’m not really a vegetarian, but rather a humane-itarian. That is, I’ll eat things that did not have to undergo excessive suffering for the sake of my appetites. I’ll eat fish, and the occasional bird or mammal that has been raised in a humane environment.
I’m willing to justify these decisions, of course, and the distinctions underlying them, but not now. (Ok, maybe a bit. I don’t think death is an evil for creatures without rather sophisticated hopes and expectations, but suffering is a decidedly negative value that outweighs my gustatory preferences. Fish, apparently, lack the neocortex and so do not seem to be susceptible to the same sort of suffering.) Here I want to point out that it is possible to eat this way on a roadtrip. It’s not easy, but I found it doable, even without packing a thermos full of lentils.
A few fast food options:
1. Burger King Veggie Burgers. That’s right. BK has a veggie burger, and it tastes better than their regular burgers. Not saying much, but we’re on the road.
2. Subway Veggie Patties. These are pretty good if you pack in the right condiments.
3. Taco Bell Bean and Cheese Burritos. I don’t really recommend these. There are numerous reasons, taste being only one of them.
4. Chipotle Pork Burritos–Since on my calculus, well-treated pigs are like spinach, this is veggie enough, and Chipotle pork is raised 100% cruelty free. Their chickens are 60% cruelty free (Clayton Littlejohn suggests that this is probably just hazing) and cattle are 40%. In any case, I think this is definitely worth supporting.
Any other ideas out there on cruelty-free fast food?
In the fine city of Tuscaloosa for a work vacation. Torin and I are starting in on our second book. (The first (A Dialogue on Consciousness) will be out in December with Oxford U. Press.) This one is on the existence of God, arguments for, against and in between. Tuscaloosa proves to be a good place to write, since there is really nothing else to do. Since I quit both drinking and eating meat (drinking alcohol, not meat) about three months ago, I’ve pretty much excluded myself from most of the activities in this town. So, I’m reading mostly philosophy and trying to get better at typing on my new eee pc.
One of the more interesting arguments I’m reading about claims that our universe appears particularly “fine-tuned” for life since of the many different settings of the initial physical constants only a very very few would allow life–or even planets–to arise. So, to explain the tuning, there are two hypotheses advances. One, of course, is that there is a god that tuned things, but the other is more interesting, i think ,which is that there are many many universes, actually existing, so many that the odds are some would be propitious for and generative of life.
I don’t buy the argument, even with its “choose your own oddity” conclusion, but it’s interesting. A book by John Leslie, “Universes”, develops the argument with rigour.
If the argument works, I gotta go with many universes, There are roaches in Tuscaloosa that no god would ever create.
That’s all I said, and lo! I get complaints about it in my student evaluations! Who could be offended at that? Apparently many students at Southern Methodist University.
Seriously, though, there was an argument, modeled after the article by David Lewis and Philip Kitcher (see selection from Harper’s here.) I think the offhand version of the argument I rather flippantly posed in class was “At least the Nazi’s only thought the Jews should burn for a few minutes. Christians think they should burn for eternity.” Ok, neither subtle nor particularly smooth. But I’ve always believed that those who believe in damnation (which, of course, is not all Christians by a long shot) should belly up to the bar and face the troubling consequences of the following syllogism: 1. If you believe an all good being does something, you believe that thing should be done. 2. Brimstone christians believe God, an all good being, sends non-believers (such as yours truly) to hell for eternal hotness. Therefore… you get the idea…