Author: Stephen Maitzen
Stephen Maitzen is the W. G. Clark Professor of Philosophy at Acadia University.
Naturalism and the Fundamental Question
Why is there anything, rather than nothing at all? The German philosopher G. W. Leibniz, co-discoverer of calculus, called it “the first question that should rightly be asked.”
On God and Our Ultimate Purpose
When believers find out I’m an atheist, they occasionally ask me how I keep going if I don’t think my life has any ultimate significance. I tell them I’m not alone. I don’t think their lives have any ultimate significance either. Less facetiously, I admit that they’ve touched on an issue that’s age-old and deeply …
Does God Destroy Our Duty of Compassion?
The great majority of believers in God would answer my title question with a resounding “On the contrary!” Far from destroying our duty of compassion, they’d say, the existence of God gives us a duty to act compassionately toward others. Some would go so far as to say that it also works in reverse: a …