Alex Strasser
@AStrasser116
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Physics, Philosophy, Religion | PhD student in Materials Science (2D materials) I blog about Ethics and Christianity at
Joined March 2019
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Jesus debunked. My interpretation of this verse will never be the same
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I became a Christian 19 years ago today! 🥳 Happy rebirthday to me
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You can also download books on , including if they are only available to be borrowed. (Not that I have ever done that)
Here are some instructions:
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I think one of the most uninteresting objections to Christianity is on the logical coherence of the Trinity.
Looking at this diagram (which is nearly a millennium old) for 4 seconds tells you the "is" is non-transitive: one sense is personhood and one sense is being.
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Scientists don't need philosophers or to understand philosophy to "do science." The trouble comes when scientists start making philosophical claims without realizing it (or caring), which happens frequently because scientists often don't know the limits of science
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Of course by some definition, both cases *do* need it. It's implicit in everything they do. But what they don't need is to delve deep into philosophy to understand what they need to understand, and they certainly don't need philosophers telling them that they don't understand...
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I fixed the meme
Someone posted this to illustrate that there are many arguments for theism.
Do you really need that many arguments for theism? If there is an all-powerful god, do people have to write so much to prove it??
Atheism doesn't need that. Just let people learn about human nature.
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I am officially a PhD candidate! (Aka I passed) 😎
The committee said it was one of the best qualifying exams they have seen, praise God
Qualifying exam paper submitted! ✅
Oral exam this Wednesday 😬
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Scientists live in the black box of "science." Philosophers see the edges and limits of science better than scientists, and scientists know what's happening in the box much better than philosophers.
Teamwork is necessary.
ngl, this kind of attitude bugs me a lot.
Scientists are absolutely the ones that understand science and the "evidential support it provides". That's the whole point.
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Do scientists need philosophy to advance scientific knowledge? Not in normal science. (Though interestingly during paradigm shifts they may face their philosophical assumptions explicitly).
Do scientists need philosophy to make claims about fundamental reality? Absolutely.
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Because it's not a good point
This point is extremely underappreciated in Philosophy of Religion.
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I was immediately permabanned from a subreddit for saying a fetus is a human being lol
The moderator note: "Preach your religion somewhere else"
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Lookout atheists. I'm at Rutgers for 3 weeks learning the fine-tuning argument from top philosophers and physicists. I'll be coming for you! 😎
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What do you think are good examples of scientists (specific or general) showing their philosophical ineptitude?
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Let's play a game where you guess if the source is physics or philosophy
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Amazing. Dissecting a human doesn't reveal human rights hiddens ANYWHERE in the organs, bloodstream, etc. Therefore, they are "just stories" (aka are not 'real'?). Fascinating
What a philosophically inept position.
Villainously inept.
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"God doesn't exist because there are gay seahorses" - a guy from philosophy club tonight
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@SRevelare
As if religious people don't apply critical thinking to their religious belief? And publish thousands of academic papers and books assessing e.g. arguments and evidence for and against God's existence?
They don't teach you that in a STEM phd, thats for sure
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Hey theists: STOP IT, QUANTUM MECHANICS DOES NOT PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. Wavefunction collapse does not require conscious observers.
hey I just learned that quantum physics proves the existence of god 😬😬
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"Evil is the absence of good" (or the absence of God) is the worst response to the PoE because it is in fact not a response at all.
Whatever evil is, there is a bunch of it in the world, and we would expect an all-good, all-loving God to prevent evil as far as God is able.
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What are the best Christian-specific responses to the problem of evil?
Marilyn McCord Adams?
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@elonconomy
Sounds pretty uninteresting. Scientists are perfectly capable of *learning* philosophy. I agree it's easier for a scientist to learn philosophy than vice versa. But unfortunately, they don't, they think they have it all figured out anyway, and make absurd claims and arguments
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This isn't how (the best) fine-tuning arguments work. There is no sneaking in anything. Virtually everyone agrees that infinite flat probability spaces are bad and render probability meaningless.
In reality, there are physically motivated bounds to the probability space
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Ok I'm losing my mind here because to me "Fine-Tuning" is such an obvious slight of hand with probability language but others don't seem to see it.
So I'm making a thread on why ALL the numbers below (and ANY constant with the phrase "1 part In X") are meaningless. 🧵
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Sure, working out the exact metaphysics of the Trinity is difficult. That's hardly a surprise. It follows from the more general principle that metaphysics is difficult, and we should expect that the metaphysics of God would be even more difficult than the metaphysics of people.
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It's incredibly uninteresting that philosophy doesn't help scientists run experiments or publish papers. I don't need my hand held in the lab by a philosopher.
So what? They're different disciplines. What's the diff b/w science & philosophy? Welcome to philosophy of science
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Scientists don't need philosophers or to understand philosophy to "do science." The trouble comes when scientists start making philosophical claims without realizing it (or caring), which happens frequently because scientists often don't know the limits of science
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Now let's do the opposite: what are good examples of philosophers showing their scientific ineptitude?
What do you think are good examples of scientists (specific or general) showing their philosophical ineptitude?
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Finally reading this bad boy
(Also if anyone wants a pdf, dm me)
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Both my submissions were accepted for the Society of Christian Philosophers conference!
I will be presenting on divine glory consequentialism, a normative ethical theory where God's glory is maximized.
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Got a paper submitted to Nature (top 2 scientific journal) and another accepted at a top machine learning conference in the same day. Gloria Deo!
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I didn't get any books for Christmas, but I did get this
Merry Christmas everyone!
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The Bible probably doesn't teach [your favorite political view]. This is no exception, as this isn't even talking about government and has nothing to do with socialism
christians: “the bible doesn’t teach socialism”
the bible:
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I got to meet Sean Carroll on my birthday today!
Didn't take a picture with him but did get to grill him a little
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What is it with Christians being terrified of philosophy?
I will once again refer to CS Lewis: "Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered."
Philosophy has always been the cause of the church going astray, for philosophy means, ultimately, a trusting to human reason and human understanding.
— Martyn Lloyd-Jones
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But recognizing the metaphysical difficulties is a far cry from concluding that the Trinity is logically incoherent or a contradiction.
(Shoutout to
@StanRockPatton
for the graphic, the coloration of which is not a millennium old)
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I am always elated when I stumble upon a review paper that clarifies terminology I've found confusing in the literature, and I especially like when it admits that the terms have often been mixed up.
#AcademicChatter
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A little late sharing but I was so happy seeing this feedback from my committee in writing
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Can someone please explain what "God is existence itself" means?
I have heard it 400,000 times but have managed to avoid ever hearing a plausible way to make sense of it.
Maybe pantheism is an at least intelligible rendering of it
God is existence itself, so he doesn’t merely have existence. He is identical to his act of existence. This argument isn’t taking that into account.
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@RealAtheology
for free, and increasing my donations to effective charities, than I would by giving such substantial sums of money to publishing companies that hinder epistemic goods of open knowledge and such. I owe more to the global poor than I do to publishing companies.
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I think one of the worst ideas in society right now is, "If it doesn't [directly] harm someone else, it is permissible."
This is false, and it has devastating consequences
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I still have no idea what this means
God is neither a thing in the world, nor the sum total of existing things; he is instead the unconditioned cause of the conditioned universe, the reason why there is something rather than nothing. Accordingly, God is not some good thing, but Goodness itself; not some true object,
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Ridiculous psychoanalysis
Provocative Thought for the Day. Having met and interacted at some length with Dr Craig and watched him speak many times, I believe Craig is a God-fearing man. That's to say, I think he is absolutely terrified of God. Craig believes hell is real, & he fears that he, Craig,...
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An argument that I still find convincing for mind-body dualism:
1. Thoughts are mental states without geometric properties (e.g., shape, size)
2. Physical states have geometric properties
3. If (1) and (2), then mental states are not identical to or reducible to physical states
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Richard Carrier thinks the standard moral theories "are actually all the same ethical theory and the fact that no one has ever noticed this is very annoying, and impeding progress in moral philosophy." 😆
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I guess I should say officially I am now a PhD student in materials science at Texas A&M
I also have an acceptance to their philosophy MA program, but they require you to secure external funding to enroll (so if any of you have $16k floating around, hmu)
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@rnw_ch
Virtually none (and for articles, precisely zero) of the money spent on academic books and articles goes to those who did the hard work of authoring them
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Definitely one of my favorite philosophy of religion books. He makes so many novel and interesting moves
(many of which I agree with, some of which I've had similar thoughts)
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Come on, Harris should know that heaven is an 11th dimensional hyperspace that requires a transloop wormhole to ascend Jacob's ladder into the hyperfuture and that's where God is
“Where is heaven exactly, given that we have multiple telescopes up there beaming back information.” - Sam Harris
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Our coauthored paper was published in Nature! In which I contributed this pretty picture
Nature research paper: Dual quantum spin Hall insulator by density-tuned correlations in TaIrTe4
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Can we not do this? Consider this:
1. Not the time
2. No
𝗧𝗼 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝗻𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗥𝗜𝗣:
What's the point of wishing for a person to rest "in peace", when as an atheist you believe his consciousness has disintegrated into total nothingness? ◼️
Is it that you 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺
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Well dang, I must have missed the "all religions are false" and "God doesn't exist" lectures in my STEM degrees
Okay, this is not going to be popular, BUT - I genuinely don’t understand how people can maintain religious faith through higher education, emerging with a PhD and intact religious belief. How isn’t the belief utterly shattered?
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I'm so confused. Do they read philosophy?
Do they think everything is justified non-inferentially?
None of philosophy would exist either. And much discussion in scientific papers (and non-fiction books) would disappear as well.
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@RealAtheology
A good q with a non-obvious answer (of course, not that I've ever done it).
I think there's a decent argument such as: I would do more moral good by the improvement of my scholarship (including defending Christianity, theism, and various ethical positions) by getting these books
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Genocide isn't always wrong: if a genocide of magnitude n would prevent a trillion genocides each of magnitude 1000000000*n, then it would be permissible.
Kant called,
"Genocide and ethnic cleansing are categorically morally wrong acts"
is substantial pushback.
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Did Sabine just suggest physicists to read more philosophers and then we'd make more progress?? It's a miracle 🙏
I find it interesting that the word "science" in English has acquired a rather narrow meaning, usually referring only to the natural sciences. I have been wondering for some while now if not the shift of the meaning and use of the word "science" has had an impact on how the
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The journal I'm a part of, Theophron, has now published its first issue!
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These quotes are what happens when scientists don't think philosophically. "Humans are 98% genetically similar to x, therefore humans are [basically] x!"
Now here's a thread of funny responses I've heard from some biologists in passing.
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I think it's really important to use our money in ways that helps those that are in the greatest need, so for "promotion" I will share a draft paper where I defend a radical form of altruism as well as a broader ethical framework to situate it
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Do you trust someone to be objective about evidence for something they want to believe?
Do you trust someone to be objective about evidence for something they don't want to believe?
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Was not expecting my airbnb host to be conversant in New Testament scholarship and the Church Fathers, turns out he used to be a monk
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Btw, electrons exist
(just in case anyone was confused)
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@SRevelare
Is it pure and obvious hokum without looking at a single piece of academic material on the topic?
You'd actually have to look at the purported evidence for and against and assess it before dismissing all who disagree as lacking critical thinking
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Oppy's standards for arguments are much too low. A good argument is one in which those who accept the conclusion DIE.
"How's that for a powerful argument?"
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Arguments for moral realism:
Companions in guilt arguments (e.g. Terence Cuneo)
Moral progress or moral reformers (e.g. Huemer)
Deliberative indispensability (David Enoch)
An ontological proof (Huemer)
Moral experience/phenomenology (Mandelbaum)
Moral disagreement
Convergence
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"If contraception is permissible, then starving people to death is permissible!" - Catholic ethicists, having a normal one
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Nationalism is garbage. Christian nationalism is hot garbage.
I sure am glad I paid attention in church when the Good Samaritan was preached
Christianity and nationalism--just like Reese's peanut butter and chocolate, two great tastes that taste great together!
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I gave a talk on campus recently on the fine-tuning argument for God's existence
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Based Aquinas, I'm not sure I've ever agreed with him more
"Aquinas holds that if someone gives a bad argument for God, we shouldn't act as if everything is ok because 'at least they are on the right team.' We should shoot the argument down, Aquinas says, lest people think that belief in God is based on this bad reason." —Michael Gorman
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Cliches that need to die:
1. "X has a history" (and therefore there is no fact of the matter)
2. "People disagree about X" (and therefore X is unjustified)
3. "Not all X" (in response to a general rule of thumb or about statistical averages)
What else am I missing?
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Call me crazy but I still think existence is a great-making property 😎
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"Christmas is pagan!"
1. It's not
2. Who cares even if it was
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The doctrine of Original Sin can be false and Christianity still true. The Gospel doesn't hinge on inherited sin or guilt. We all have done morally wrong things and thus need a Savior.
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Happy birthday to me, starting off strong by finishing up manuscript revisions at 4am Sunday morning🙃
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My favorite Bible verse is Job 38:3, "The LORD said to Job, 'There are God-justifying reasons for my permitting evil that you do not have epistemic access to, so skeptical theism is correct.'"
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Qualifying exam paper submitted! ✅
Oral exam this Wednesday 😬
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Some people might say, "But evil doesn't exist 'on its own', 'as a thing in itself,' 'by its own right', it 'depends on good for its existence'."
Okay, so what? What does that have to do with anything? The inference to God stopping evil remains perfectly intact.
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Spoiler alert: these are not, in fact, more useful than a philosophy degree
A “razor” is a rule of thumb that simplifies decision-making.
7 razors that are more useful than a $50,000 philosophy degree:
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I *love* when academic articles include untranslated Latin sentences 🙄
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Perry Hendricks' book on Skeptical Theism is out!
(Message me if you want a pdf)
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"...the arguments recently put forward by Koons, or by Gale and Pruss, are successful proofs of the existence of God" - Graham Oppy
(Nevermind the "It seems conceivable that" at the beginning of that sentence)
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I'm still so confused as to what anti-abortion sentiment cares at all about controlling women's bodies?
Where does this idea come from? No pro-life person I have ever read or talked to gives a crap about controlling women's bodies as some type of goal with being anti-abortion.
Much anti-abortion sentiment is about controling women’s bodies, but the (incorrrect) philosophical idea that a tiny group of cells is a “person” having rights certainly plays a role.
Philosophy matters. Ontology matters. The fundamental nature of reality matters.
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The scoffing replies to this tweet are totally unnecessary. There's an obvious sense in which having more women in philosophy of religion is good: it is more likely to lead to truth. There are epistemic benefits to diversity of thought, and men and women think differently. There
Analytic Atheist Philosophy is a formidable and venerable tradition, but it has unfortunately been dominated by cis-white men since its inception. On International Women's Day, we want to admire some female philosophers of religion whose work has been formative in our research.
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