Personhood is a notoriously tricky philosophical term to define, let alone argue about in court. Indeed, the argument that a fertilized human egg has personhood is an incredibly difficult claim to establish. Nonetheless, it is an argument that anti-choicers have been desperate to see debated within the hallowed confines of the highest US court. Unfortunately […]
Jonathan MS Pearce
A TIPPLING PHILOSOPHER
Jonathan MS Pearce is a philosopher, author, columnist, and public speaker with an interest in writing about almost anything, from skepticism to science, politics, and morality, to the environment, because everything is philosophy. A former teacher, God - or the universe - has afflicted him with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. He can no longer play football with his twin boys, but he can still write a good column and book. His books cover a wide topic area: atheism, the creation of the universe, the Resurrection, the Nativity, free will, poetry, and skepticism to name a few, as well as zombie pandemics, kids' adventures and how to be a father of twins.
Posted inWar and Peace
What we can learn from the Kerch Bridge explosion
When it was built in 2018, the Kerch Bridge was the pride of Russian imperialism, much to the chagrin of the Ukrainians. The construction spans the Kerch Strait that separates the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov, connecting mainland Russia to the illegally annexed region of Crimea. Crimea is a crucial area for the […]
Posted inMeaning & Purpose, Philosophy
Building our own meaning and purpose
The age-old problem of deciphering the meaning of life never gets old as a philosophical project. The word “decipher” here is the wrong word to use from a humanist’s point of view, of course. It is not the meaning is hidden in the fabric of the universe, laid there carefully by some deity for us […]
Posted inPolitics, War and Peace
Biden: We are facing the ‘prospect of Armageddon’
The world has been perilously close to an apocalypse on a number of occasions. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is one of the most famous. It actually involved several examples, with the closest being when the Soviet submarine B-59 surfaced after a US warship had been dropping practice depth charges. The submarine, incommunicado, believed […]
Posted inPolitics, War and Peace
Can Putin, locked in a bubble of bad intel, spin his way out of disaster?
Colonel General Gennady Zhidko is being reappointed to command Russia’s Eastern Military District. One pro-Russian Telegram user has claimed that the general and others have created “a wall of lies…a sea of blood and a swamp of corpses.” That wall of lies has for many months encircled the Kremlin. Yet, in the world of geopolitics, […]
Posted inPhilosophy, Religion
Can you even calculate a best possible world?
One of the arguments in my most recent book 30 Arguments Against the Existence of “God” concerns OmniGod creating this world, and that this world must be the best of all possible worlds. This is because OmniGod is constrained by his characteristic of being all-loving. In being omnibenevolent, God’s actions must always conform to this […]
Posted inPolitics, War and Peace
Russia to illegally annex four more areas in Ukraine
In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and essentially occupied parts of two regions (oblasts) in Ukraine, incurring the impotent “wrath” of much of the rest of the world. The lack of meaningful pushback from the West at that time was part of what emboldened Putin to invade the sovereign democratic nation of Ukraine some seven months […]
Posted inPolitics
Far-right coalition takes power in Italy
The most right-wing government since Mussolini is forming a government in Italy after a general election this past weekend. This comes as no surprise and accords with polling that preceded the election, causing further alarm for those who are worried about Europe, and the wider world, lurching to the right. The party that won the […]
Posted inWar and Peace
Will Putin go nuclear?
Vladimir Putin has a well-earned reputation for saber-rattling that in the end amounts to nothing. But when the saber is the most destructive weapon known to humanity—nuclear weapons some seven hundred times more powerful than those used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki—it is dangerous to be dismissive. When the Russian leader announced in a speech that […]
Posted inHealth, Healthcare
Is the pandemic over? Depends on who you listen to
“The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lotta work on it. It’s…but the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing. And I think this is a perfect example of it.” […]