Articles written by Shawn Kew

Where Knowledge Rules

What is Helium

About me - Shawn Kew

+ more bio information

RSS Feed

Religion & Spirituality > Atheism & Agnosticism Exploring the question of freedom offered by atheism: 1 of 38
Does Atheism offer freedom? This is in fact a good example of the fallacy of a loaded question, because it assumes that freedom can be offered at all, let alone by a system of beliefs. The mere fact though that we can argue on the existence of freedom seems to strongly suggest that it does in fact exist. After all it would s... More..
Religion & Spirituality > Atheism & Agnosticism God believes in you. Why do you not believe in Him?: 4 of 46
If God is benevolent why does he require that I believe? Is it not enough that I do what is good? If on the other hand God does require that I believe in him, then why should I hold him to a lower standard than he holds me. God may believe in me, but it is not required that I believe in Him to live a 'good' life. So really, ... More..
Arts & Humanities > Ethics Being good vs. being religious: 7 of 41
It was Socrates who pointed out that what pleases god(s) cannot be the same as what is by necessity good. This is not to say that everything in every religious dogma is not good, but rather that being religious is not a necessary condition to being good. If the former claims are true than a battle between being good and bein... More..
Arts & Humanities > Meaning of Life Big Bang or Big Man: How in the heck did we get here?: 32 of 87
Basically the big bang vs the big man, is a question of the design argument. The big bang is an answer to the conclusion to Bertrand Russel's rebuttal of the design argument for the existence of Big Man, where he concedes that he cannot think of how else the world has come to be what it is. Since that time we have had the th... More..
Religion & Spirituality > Atheism & Agnosticism Why atheism and morality are not incompatible: 15 of 40
There are a number of sources for the myth of atheists being without morals. Most spring out of a statement in one holy book or another that our knowledge of good and evil is somehow god given. Immanuel Kant of course proved that this can't be the case in his Critique of Practical reason. Kant showed that we arrive at things... More..
Business > Advertising Are business ethics or profits more important?: 3 of 8
Somewhere I heard that ethics are a luxury I cannot afford. As glib as this statement seems it has a bit of truth to it. Look at fair trade in your grocery store, most of the time it is the more expensive choice. Of course this is partly due to the difference in the supply of resources that can be made into fair trade goods.... More..
Politics, News & Issues > Political & Economic Theory Should lawmakers free us from market forces by controlling gas prices?: 10 of 25
The gas prices are more complex to control than putting a price cap on. All putting a cap on gas prices will do is decrease the amount of gas available at the pump. The solution to the gas problem is more complex than that. What you really need is lower demand for oil. So you put a price ceiling in place, that sounds good ex... More..
Arts & Humanities > History (Other) How to prevent genocide: 7 of 10
The thing with a genocide is that it cannot happen without a degree of consent from the rest of the people in the immediate area. For instance if you decided to try and kill all of the Mexicans you would need the implied consent of the people around the Mexicans, force alone is not enough to allow a genocide. So one thing th... More..
Politics, News & Issues > Constitutional & Contract Law Should a woman have the right to choose abortion?: 303 of 428
A woman should have the right to choose an abortion. Now you can dance around all you want about how this is a child not a choice and all of that, but the fact remains that women will have reasons for wanting an abortion. The question is then, how will the government stop her? Preventing access to the procedure by barring it... More..
Arts & Humanities > History (Other) What is genocide denial?: 3 of 4
Denial can come in many forms, and for many reasons. The most common form of denial is out of ignorance, that is you deny something because you do not have the information required to believe it. There is also the denial of convenience, if a piece of knowledge proves inconvenient to hold, it will often be denied its truth va... More..