Belief in electrons, sleeping through earthquakes

Elsewhere on the web, people are having to suffer my attempts at philosophy:

Belief in electrons

Over at Debunking Christianity, there's an interesting dialogue about science. John W. Loftus has some guest postings from Kenneth J. Howell, a Catholic who wrote a book about the relationship between religion and early science. Howell's been asking interesting questions about what atheists think of unobservable things (like electrons) in scientific theories, and later, on different kinds of evidence and whether all fields of inquiry should use the same standards. Armed with the Kasser lectures (you too can become an expert in the philosophy of science in just 21 days!) and some stuff I vaguely remember from my degree, I had a go at some responses: here, on electrons; and here, on standards of evidence, reductionism and all that jazz. There are some good comments there, although there's also an awful lot off-topic wibbling.

Sleeping through earthquakes

Over on the Premier Radio forums, they're wondering where God was in Haiti. Somewhat mischievously (but in a fine Biblical tradition), I've suggested he was asleep. I also linked to Stephen Law's God of Eth (soon to be published as The Evil God Challenge) where Law argues that most arguments from Christians defending God's goodness, despite the fact there's so much evil in the world, can be turned into defences of an evil god's evilness, despite the fact that there's so much good in the world. A chap called Nick disagreed with the God of Eth argument and has been trying to paint me into some sort of corner involving Aquinas and Augustine, but unfortunately he seems to have gone away before getting around to telling me what his argument was. We'd got as far as arguing about whether all pleasures are good. Anyone have any idea where he might have been going with it?