nameandnature

God and Morality (Part 2): Owing Duties and the Euthyphro Dilemma: A good introduction to the Euthyphro Dilemma, the problem faced by people who claim moral facts can only exist if God exists: if God is a moral expert, the moral facts he's an expert on are independent of him (so you don't need God for moral facts to exist); if God is a moral "engineer", there's little motivation to do what he says, since he might tell us to do what we regard as terrible things. I mentioned the "it's God's nature which defines good" response in the comments.
(tags: morality euthypro-dilemma ethics religion)
The God Squad: "In a little-noticed press release on Wednesday, the Department for Communities and Local Government announced a group of 13 "inter-faith" advisers to act as its "sounding board" on all things faith." Heresiarch names the lucky 13 and provides some background on each of them, although he doesn't tell us which one is Judas. "Not a humanist in sight", he says. It's enough to make you vote Conservative...
(tags: politics religion labour new-labour uk inter-faith)
BBC News - Frozen Britain seen from above: Brrrr.....
(tags: bbc news photo satellite uk weather snow cold)
Strange Horizons Fiction Department: Stories We've Seen Too Often: Strange Horizons lists SF plots they don't want to see because they see them so often.
(tags: writing scifi sci-fi sf science-fiction plots funny literature books)

Link blog: religion, uk, new-labour, photo