Stephen Law

Centre for Inquiry UK, the British Humanist Association and Conway Hall Ethical Society present The Magic of Maths: find out about the uniquely beautiful patterns hidden in Pascal's triangle; about our (often poor) intuitive understanding of probability and the risk of events governing our lives; and about the greatest unsolved puzzles in maths! Join us at Conway Hall – the world's oldest Ethical Society – for a fascinating day of magical maths, uncovering some of the incredible ways numbers and patterns are woven through nature and our everyday lives. Programme 11:00–12:00 | Maths' greatest unsolved puzzles, with Katie Steckles While mathematicians are undoubtedly brilliant, and their work is used in all kinds of amazing scientific and technological discoveries, there are still questions they can't answer. Every mathematical question is a puzzle to be solved, and while there'll be plenty of puzzles for you to chew on, we'll also discuss some o...

Here is me discussing Wittgenstein's private language argument, Wittgenstein on the standard metre, naturalism, evil, God, and Jeremy Corbyn! Link .

Interesting article here on a schoolboy interviewed by the police about terrorism because he wore a 'Free Palestine' badge. Wear 'Free Palestine' badge = likely terrorist supporter. Pro-BDS = antisemitic. This is obviously ridiculous. Which is not to deny there are anti-semites amongst such people, of course. Similarly, some think those pointing to at least *some* significant Western responsibility for rise of Islamic terrorism = Islamism (or at least support or apologetics for it). On the other side, suggest there's a significant problem re Islamism in the UK (and I do think that, in fact) and you will likely be deemed Islamophobic. You will also be labelled Islamophobic if you defend the right to free speech of someone like Maryam Namazie. Or if you believe Islam is a root cause of terrorist violence (which I do). In each case, there's an attempt to stifle and silence dissent with a shaming accusation of bigotry. For of course, the one thing us left...

'Corbyn and his supporters do not want us to think about Paris because they cannot accept that privileged westerners can be victims. If Isis kills them, it is their own or their governments’ fault.'  Nick Cohen. Source Below are the results of some twitter polls I did recently. I was interested to know the attitudes of Corbyn supporters on twitter compared to the more general twitterati. I was particularly interested to know whether Nick Cohen's portrayal of Corbyn supporters was accurate. Of course, mine is not a very scientific survey, and it should be remembered that respondents are not representative of the twitterati generally , but of those who happen to follow me (Corbynites are probably over-represented). "Terrorism has nothing to do with Islam and is entirely the fault of the West" Notice the following:   82% of Corbyn supporters rejected the view that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam and is entirely the fault of the West. "Isla...

Theologian Prof John Milbank and I exchange blows on God here. http://iainews.iai.tv/…/law-vs-milbank-belief-and-the-gods-… We do not hold our punches. Parts 3 and 4 will be up shortly but if you can't wait here is my response to Milbank's reply now (ie part 3): Thanks to John Milbank for responding to my opening piece on God and science. I initially suggested many God beliefs are empirically - and even scientifically - refutable in the sense that we might establish beyond reasonable doubt, on the basis of observation, that the belief is false. I gave three examples: belief there's a God that answers petitionary prayer; belief that there's a God who created the world 6,000 years ago; and belief there's a God that's omnipotent and omni- malevolent . I then suggested that, for similar reasons, we can reasonably rule out a god that's omnipotent and omni- benevolent . John rejects that last suggestion and defends the view that his particular ...

I like, share, and retweet quite a bit of left-wing stuff. Why? Well, I am aware that doing so is often just indicative of cognitive bias - pay attention to that which supports your preferred narrative ignore what doesn't. Am I guilty of that? Almost certainly - we all are. However, the MAIN reason I like and share political stuff is that: (i) I am also aware that in certain academic circles people self-censor on th is stuff given social/peer pressure, and I'm afraid that brings out the rebel in me (I'm wired in such a way that if I feel I am under pressure not to say something, I'm more likely to say it), and (ii) MOST IMPORTANTLY, because I am VERY sure that the dominant narrative across the media is very skewed to the right and narrow in focus, so feel I need to do my bit to get other messages and evidence out there and discussion going. It's about moving the Overton Window. Here 's something I wrote back in 2012 on this subject.

Here's the penultimate draft of something in Free Inquiry, out now. Evil God and Mirror Theodicies Stephen Law The problem of evil is perhaps the best-known objection to standard monotheism, that's to say, to belief in God defined as omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnibenevolent (all-good). In fact there are two problems of evil, the logical and the evidential. Here I focus on the 'evidential' problem, which is often presented as follows: If gratuitous evil exists, then God does not exist. Gratuitous evil exists. Therefore, God does not exist. 'Evil', in this context comes in two varieties: (i) moral evils such as the morally bad things we do as free moral agents (we start wars, murder, steal, etc.) and (ii) natural evils such as natural diseases and disasters that cause great suffering. So-called 'gratuitous' evils are evils for which there exists no God-justifying reason . Perhaps God has goo...